Merchant terminal for receiving payment from a vehicle

ABSTRACT

Methods, systems, apparatus, and non-transitory computer readable media are described for using a vehicle as a payment device. Various aspects may include receiving a selection of a stored financial card or financial account at a vehicle head unit. The selected financial card or financial account may be transmitted to a point-of-sale (POS) terminal for making a payment by transmitting a tokenized card number to the POS terminal. The tokenized card number may be transmitted over a very short-range communication link to ensure that the transmission is secure. For example, electronic circuitry may be attached to the exterior of the vehicle, where the electronic circuitry may be within a threshold distance (e.g. one inch, three inches, six inches, one foot, three feet, etc.) of the POS terminal. The tokenized card number may be transmitted from the vehicle head unit to the electronic circuitry and then to the POS terminal.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a divisional application divided from and claimingpriority to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/168,001 entitled“Merchant Terminal for Receiving Payment from a Vehicle,” filed on Feb.4, 2021, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/428,656 entitled “Merchant Terminal for Receiving Payment from aVehicle,” filed on Feb. 9, 2017, which claims priority to and thebenefit of the filing date of (1) provisional U.S. Patent ApplicationNo. 62/295,596 entitled “Connected Car as a Payment Device,” filed onFeb. 16, 2016, (2) provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 62/360,015entitled “Merchant Terminal for Receiving Payment from a Vehicle,” filedon Jul. 8, 2016, and (3) provisional U.S. Patent Application No.62/362,152 entitled “Merchant Terminal for Receiving Payment from aVehicle,” filed on Jul. 14, 2016, the entire contents of each of whichis hereby expressly incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure generally relates to systems, methods, apparatus,and non-transitory computer readable media for using a vehicle as apayment device and, more particularly to completing a financialtransaction by communicating from a vehicle to a point-of-sale (POS)terminal.

BACKGROUND

Today, vehicle occupants pay for several goods and services while thevehicle occupants are inside or near their vehicles, such as food, fuel,a car wash, etc. Typically, the transaction takes place by swiping afinancial card such as a credit or debit card at a POS terminal or byproviding cash or the financial card to an employee of the establishmentwhich provides the goods or services. However, this requires a vehicleoccupant to constantly carry cash and/or financial cards when makingpurchases, get out of her vehicle to make payments, and/or exchange cashor a financial card with an employee, which may be a time-consumingprocess.

BRIEF SUMMARY

The present embodiments may relate to using a vehicle as a paymentdevice, so that users may remain inside their vehicles when makingpayments for goods and services, such as food, fuel, a car wash, etc. Anapplication may be stored within an infotainment system (also referredto herein as a “vehicle head unit”) of a vehicle which stores datarepresenting financial cards for making payments. To retrieve one of thestored financial cards for making a payment at a drive-thru, fuelstation, etc., the user may select an indication of a financial card atthe infotainment system.

In response to the user's selection, the infotainment system maytransmit the selected data over a short-range communication link to aPOS terminal at the drive-thru, fuel station, etc. The POS terminal maythen process the payment using the transmitted data and/or transmit anelectronic receipt to be displayed on the infotainment system. In someembodiments, for additional security and/or to establish a communicationlink between the infotainment system and the POS terminal, electroniccircuitry may be proximately attached to the exterior of the vehicle,such as at or near the fuel tank cap (also referred to herein as a “fuelcap”). The electronic circuitry may receive the selected data from theinfotainment system over a first short-range communication link, and/ortransmit the received data to the POS terminal over a second veryshort-range communication link.

In one aspect, a computer-implemented method for using a point-of-saleterminal to accept vehicle payments may be provided. The method mayinclude: (1) receiving (via one or more processors and/or associatedtransceivers in a POS terminal) an indication that a vehicle forproviding electronic payments is within a predetermined range of the POSterminal; (2) transmitting (via the one or more processors and/orassociated transceivers, and/or a wired or wireless communication and/ordata transmission over a radio link or wireless communication channel)an electronic message including an indication of goods or services thatcan be purchased at the POS terminal and a user control for transmittinga request to order the goods or services to the POS terminal, whereinthe electronic message is displayed on a head unit of the vehicle; inresponse to receiving an indication from the vehicle that the vehicle ora user within the vehicle wants to initiate a payment process; and/or(3) receiving (via the one or more processors and/or associatedtransceivers, and/or a wired or wireless communication and/or datatransmission from an electronic device proximately attached to anexterior of the vehicle over a radio link or wireless communicationchannel) information indicative of a financial account for makingpayments. The method may further include: (4) providing (via the one ormore processors) the goods or services to the vehicle; (5) transmitting(via the one or more processors and/or associated transceivers, and/or awired or wireless communication and/or data transmission over a radiolink or wireless communication channel) the information indicative ofthe financial account to an issuing bank server for processing paymentfor the goods or services; and/or when the payment is accepted asindicated by the issuing bank server, (6) transmitting (via the one ormore processors and/or associated transceivers, and/or a wired orwireless communication and/or data transmission to the vehicle over aradio link or wireless communication channel) an electronic receiptindicative of the payment to facilitate using the vehicle as a paymentdevice. The method may include additional, fewer, or alternativeactions, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

In another aspect, a merchant communication terminal for facilitatingusing a vehicle as a payment device may be provided. The merchantcommunication terminal may include one or more processors (and/orassociated transceivers) in a merchant communication terminal associatedwith a merchant, and/or a non-transitory computer-readable memorycoupled to the one or more processors and storing machine readableinstructions, that when executed by the one or more processors, maycause the merchant communication terminal to perform various tasks. Forexample, the instructions may cause the system to: (1) detect atriggering event indicating that a vehicle is within a predeterminedrange for communicating with the merchant communication terminal; (2)establish a short-range communication link between the merchantcommunication terminal and the vehicle; (3) electronically verifyidentification information indicative of the vehicle or a user withinthe vehicle; (4) electronically verify a virtual account associated withthe vehicle or the user within the vehicle; (5) accept a virtual orderfor goods or services provided by the merchant; and/or (6) automaticallyprovide the goods or services to the vehicle to facilitate using thevehicle as a payment device. The system may include additional, fewer,or alternate components and/or functionality, including that discussedelsewhere herein.

In yet another aspect, a merchant communication terminal for using anautonomous vehicle as an electronic payment device may be provided. Themerchant communication terminal may include one or more processors(and/or associated transceivers) in a merchant communication terminalassociated with a merchant, and/or a non-transitory computer-readablememory coupled to the one or more processors and storing machinereadable instructions, that when executed by the one or more processors,may cause the merchant communication terminal to perform various tasks.For example, the instructions may cause the system to: (1) obtainidentification information for an autonomous vehicle; (2) verify thatthe autonomous vehicle has not been reported stolen by communicating theidentification information to a server for retrieving stolen vehiclerecords; (3) detect a triggering event indicating that the autonomousvehicle is within a predetermined range for communicating with themerchant communication terminal; and/or (4) receive, via a short-rangecommunication link, virtual account information for a virtual accountassociated with the vehicle. The instructions may further cause thesystem to: (5) receive and accept, via the short-range communicationlink, an input from the vehicle authorizing payment for goods andservices provided by the merchant; (6) securely receive, via theshort-range communication link, funds from the virtual account at avirtual account for the merchant; and/or (7) transmit, via theshort-range communication link, a notification that electronic paymentfor the goods or services has been accepted to facilitate the autonomousvehicle acting as a payment device.

Advantages will become more apparent to those skilled in the art fromthe following description of the preferred embodiments which have beenshown and described by way of illustration. As will be realized, thepresent embodiments may be capable of other and different embodiments,and their details are capable of modification in various respects.Accordingly, the drawings and description are to be regarded asillustrative in nature and not as restrictive.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The figures described below depict various aspects of the system andmethods disclosed therein. It should be understood that each figuredepicts an embodiment of a particular aspect of the disclosed system andmethods, and that each of the figures is intended to accord with apossible embodiment thereof. Further, wherever possible, the followingdescription refers to the reference numerals included in the followingfigures, in which features depicted in multiple figures are designatedwith consistent reference numerals.

There are shown in the drawings arrangements which are presentlydiscussed, it being understood, however, that the present embodimentsare not limited to the precise arrangements and instrumentalities shown,wherein.

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary environment on whichan exemplary vehicle payment system may operate in accordance with anexemplary aspect of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2A illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary vehicle head unit inaccordance with an exemplary aspect of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2B illustrates a block diagram of exemplary electronic circuitryattached to the exterior of the vehicle in accordance with an exemplaryaspect of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3A depicts an exemplary financial card entry screen of a vehiclepayment application in accordance with an exemplary aspect of thepresent disclosure;

FIG. 3B depicts an exemplary activation screen of a vehicle paymentapplication in accordance with an exemplary aspect of the presentdisclosure;

FIG. 3C depicts an exemplary financial card selection screen of avehicle payment application in accordance with an exemplary aspect ofthe present disclosure;

FIG. 3D depicts an exemplary payment authorization screen of a vehiclepayment application in accordance with an exemplary aspect of thepresent disclosure;

FIG. 3E depicts an exemplary electronic receipt screen of a vehiclepayment application in accordance with an exemplary aspect of thepresent disclosure;

FIG. 4 depicts a flow diagram representing an exemplary method forimplementing the vehicle payment system in accordance with an exemplaryaspect of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 depicts an exemplary connected vehicle configured for use as apayment device in accordance with an exemplary aspect of the presentdisclosure;

FIG. 6 depicts an exemplary system that is configured to facilitateusing a connected vehicle as a payment device in accordance with anexemplary aspect of the present disclosure;

FIG. 7 depicts an exemplary system that is configured to facilitateusing a connected vehicle as a payment device including a robotic arm inan extended position in accordance with an exemplary aspect of thepresent disclosure; and

FIG. 8 depicts a flow diagram representing an exemplarycomputer-implemented method of conducting commercial transactions withan autonomous vehicle configured for vehicle pay via merchant terminalsin accordance with an exemplary aspect of the present disclosure.

The figures depict preferred embodiments for purposes of illustrationonly. One skilled in the art will readily recognize from the followingdiscussion that alternative embodiments of the systems and methodsillustrated herein may be employed without departing from the principlesof the invention described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

To utilize a vehicle as a payment device, a vehicle payment applicationmay be included in a vehicle head unit. The vehicle payment applicationmay store one or more financial cards or any other financial accounts(also referred to herein as a “virtual account”) of a user, which may beretrieved for making payments from the vehicle. The financial cards orfinancial accounts may be received at the vehicle payment applicationby, for example, scanning an image of the financial card at the vehiclehead unit, entering data for the financial card or financial account(also referred to herein as “virtual account information”) such as acardholder name, card issuer, card number, card expiration date, etc.,and/or transferring data for the financial card or financial accountfrom a mobile device such as a smart-phone, wearable device, laptopcomputer, tablet, etc.

In some embodiments, the vehicle payment application may generate atoken representing the financial data for the financial card (alsoreferred to herein as a “tokenized card number”) and/or may store thetoken rather than the financial data to reduce the risk of a securitybreach. The financial data may include a cardholder name, a card number,a card expiration date, a card security code (CSC), and/or a card type(e.g., VISA®, MasterCard®, American Express®, Discover®, etc.). In someembodiments, the financial data may also include additional informationassociated with the financial card such as a billing address.

Also in some embodiments, the financial data may be transmitted to athird-party token server which may generate and/or transmit the token tothe vehicle head unit. The third-party token server may store the tokenwith the corresponding financial data for the financial card. When thepayment is processed, the issuing bank may communicate with thethird-party token server to retrieve the financial data corresponding tothe token, for example. In yet other embodiments, the third-party tokenserver may be the issuing bank.

In any event, when a user wants to make a purchase from the vehicle, theuser may select a user control requesting to make a payment from thevehicle. The vehicle payment application may then authenticate the userto ensure that the user is authorized to make payments with the storedfinancial cards or financial accounts. For example, the user may beauthenticated by receiving biometric information from the user such as afingerprint, an image of the user's face or eyes, etc., and comparingthe biometric information to stored biometric information for authorizedusers. In other embodiments, the user may be authenticated by entering ausername and/or password. In any event, when the user is authenticated,the user may select an indication of one of the stored financial cardsat the vehicle head unit via the vehicle payment application. Anindication of a financial card may be an image representing thefinancial card including the shape of the financial card, the backgroundcolor/image of the financial card, the name of the issuer of thefinancial card (also referred to herein as an “issuing bank”), the cardtype, and/or masked financial data.

A token representing financial data for the selected financial card maythen be transmitted to a POS terminal at the establishment where theuser is making the purchase. For example, the token may be transmittedto the POS terminal via a short-range communication link, such asBluetooth, Universal Serial Bus (USB), Dedicated Short-RangeCommunications (DSRC), Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID), etc. Insome embodiments, the vehicle payment system may include electroniccircuitry (also referred to herein as an “electronic device”)proximately attached to the exterior of the vehicle, such as a doorpanel, fuel cap, etc. In such embodiments, the vehicle head unit maycommunicate with the electronic circuitry via a first short-rangecommunication link, such as Bluetooth, for example. The electroniccircuitry may in turn communicate with the POS terminal, via a secondvery short-range communication link such as Near Field Communication(NFC), high frequency (HF) RFID, etc.

A short-range communication link may be a communication link betweendevices where data is transmitted via a wired and/or wireless connectionwithin a first threshold distance (e.g. 30 feet, 50 feet, 100 feet, 200feet, etc.). For example, a short-range communication link may includeBluetooth, DSRC, RFID, Wi-Fi, USB, etc. A very short-range communicationlink may be a communication link between devices where data istransmitted via a wired and/or wireless connection within a secondthreshold distance which is less than the first threshold distance(e.g., one inch, three inches, six inches, a foot, three feet, etc.).For example, a very short-range communication link may include NFC, HFRFID, etc. In some scenarios, very short-range communication links mayalso be short-range communication links.

For example, the vehicle head unit and the electronic circuitry may bepaired together via a Bluetooth pairing. When the user requests to makea payment from the vehicle and selects a stored financial card orfinancial account, the vehicle head unit may transmit an indication tothe electronic circuitry to transmit the token representing thefinancial data for the selected financial card. In turn, the electroniccircuitry may transmit the token over the second very short-rangecommunication link to the POS terminal.

The electronic circuitry proximately attached to the exterior of thevehicle may be in very close proximity to the POS terminal (e.g. withinone inch, three inches, six inches, a foot, three feet, etc.). Byutilizing the electronic circuitry as an intermediary between thevehicle head unit and the POS terminal, the present embodimentsadvantageously allow for secure transmission of the token representingfinancial data. For example, by transmitting the token between deviceswhich are within a few inches or feet of each other via a veryshort-range communication link, it becomes very difficult foreavesdroppers to intercept the signal. In this manner, the transmissionmay be secure while allowing the user to add and/or select financialcards, authorize payments, and/or view electronic receipts on thedisplay of the vehicle head unit.

Additionally, in some embodiments, the token may be transmitted from thevehicle head unit to the electronic circuitry once, when a new financialcard or financial account is added. Subsequently, when the userauthorizes payment for a selected financial card or financial account,an indication of the financial card or financial account may betransmitted to the electronic circuitry, which may in turn retrieveand/or transmit the token to the POS terminal. Accordingly, the presentembodiments create additional security for the transmission of a tokenrepresenting financial data, because the token is only transmitted fromthe vehicle head unit to the electronic circuitry once. After theinitial transmission, all subsequent transmissions may be over veryshort distances, as mentioned above, making it difficult foreavesdroppers to intercept the signal.

In addition to transmitting payments from a vehicle in a secure manner,the present embodiments advantageously allow for further automation ofthe retail process. For example, as described in more detail below, avehicle at a fuel station may automatically transmit payment, open afuel cap for receiving the fuel and interact with a smart fuel pumphaving a robotic arm to maneuver the nozzle and fill the vehicle withfuel. In this manner, autonomous vehicles may travel to the fuelstation, receive fuel and make a payment without any human intervention.

Generally speaking, the techniques for utilizing a vehicle as a paymentdevice may be implemented in one or more network servers, in one or moreclient devices, in a vehicle head unit, in electronic circuitry attachedto the exterior of the vehicle, or a system that includes several ofthese devices. However, for clarity, the examples below focus primarilyon an embodiment in which financial data for a financial card isreceived at a vehicle head unit. The vehicle head unit may transmit thefinancial data to a third-party token server which may generate and/ortransmit a token representing the financial data to the vehicle headunit. When a user selects the financial card for making a payment, thevehicle head unit may transmit the token representing financial data forthe selected financial card to electronic circuitry attached to theexterior of the vehicle. The electronic circuitry may then transmit thetoken to the POS terminal for processing the payment. In otherembodiments, the vehicle head unit may communicate directly with the POSterminal.

I. EXEMPLARY ENVIRONMENT FOR VEHICLE PAYMENT DEVICE

FIG. 1 illustrates various aspects of an exemplary environmentimplementing a vehicle payment system 100. The environment 100 mayinclude a vehicle head unit 14 within a vehicle 12, a portable device 10within the vehicle 12, electronic circuitry 50 proximately attached tothe exterior of the vehicle, a third-party token server 104, and/or aPOS terminal 20 which may be communicatively connected through one ormore short-range and/or very short-range communication links 120, 122and/or a network 130, as described below.

The vehicle 12 may be operated by a human, such as a user or may be anautonomous and/or semi-autonomous vehicle. An autonomous vehicle may bea vehicle including one or more automated operation features capable ofoperating the vehicle in the absence of or without operating input froma vehicle operator. A semi-autonomous vehicle may be a vehicle with oneor more automated operation features capable of operating the vehiclewithout operating input from a vehicle operator and one or more manualoperation features that require operating input from a vehicle operator.

According to some embodiments, the vehicle head unit 14 may be acombination of hardware and software components, also as described inmore detail below. The vehicle head unit 14 may include a display 18 forpresenting application data. The display 18 in some implementations maybe a touchscreen and may include a software keyboard for entering textinput, such as financial data for a financial card, a financial cardselection, etc. Hardware input controls 22 on the vehicle head unit 14may be used for entering alphanumeric characters or to perform otherfunctions. The vehicle head unit 14 also may include audio input andoutput components such as a microphone and speakers, for example.

Furthermore, the vehicle head unit 14 may communicate with a portabledevice 10 within the vehicle via a communication link, which may bewired (e.g., wired Universal Serial Bus (USB)) or wireless (e.g.,Bluetooth, Wi-Fi Direct, wireless USB). For example, the portable device10 may store indications of financial cards, tokens, and/or financialdata which may be transmitted to the vehicle head unit 14 when a useradds a new financial card to the vehicle payment application. Theportable device 10 may be a tablet computer, a cell phone, a personaldigital assistant (PDA), a smart-phone, a laptop computer, a portablemedia player (not shown), a pager, a wearable computing device, smartglasses, smart watches or bracelets, phablets, other smart devices,devices configured for wired or wireless RF (Radio Frequency)communication, etc.

Moreover, the vehicle head unit 14 may include one or more processor(s)such as a microprocessor coupled to a memory. The memory may betangible, non-transitory memory and may include any types of suitablememory modules, including random access memory (RAM), read-only memory(ROM), flash memory, other types of persistent memory, etc. The memorymay store, for example instructions executable on the processors for avehicle payment application. The vehicle head unit 14 is described inmore detail below with reference to FIG. 2A.

A. Exemplary Vehicle Payment Application

To utilize a vehicle as a payment device, the vehicle paymentapplication may receive and/or store indications of one or morefinancial cards or financial accounts, a token representing financialdata for each financial card, and/or biometric or login information forauthorized users to verify that the user is authorized to make paymentswith the stored financial cards. The vehicle payment application maypresent indications of each of the stored financial cards on the display18 of the vehicle head unit 14 and one or more user controls forallowing the user to select one of the financial cards. Upon receiving aselection of one of the financial cards and a request to make payment,the vehicle payment application may transmit the token representingfinancial data for the selected financial data via a short-rangecommunication link 120 to the POS terminal 20. In some embodiments, thevehicle payment application may transmit the token via a firstshort-range communication link 120 to the electronic circuitry 50proximately attached to the exterior of the vehicle. The electroniccircuitry 50 may then transmit the token via a second very short-rangecommunication link 122 to the POS terminal 20. In any event, the POSterminal 20 may transmit an electronic receipt to the vehicle head unit14, and the vehicle payment application may present the electronicreceipt on the display 18.

B. Exemplary Electronic Circuitry

The electronic circuitry 50 proximately attached to the exterior of thevehicle may be a combination of hardware and software components, alsoas described in more detail below. The electronic circuitry 50 mayinclude a wireless transceiver for transmitting/receiving radio signalsusing NFC, Bluetooth, USB, DSRC, RFID, Wi-Fi, etc. The electroniccircuitry 50 may communicate with the vehicle head unit 14 via a firstshort-range communication link 120. The electronic circuitry 50 may alsocommunicate with the POS terminal 20 via a second very short-rangecommunication link 122. In some embodiments, the electronic circuitry 50may include one or more processor(s) such as a microprocessor coupled toa memory.

Moreover, the electronic circuitry 50 may store tokens representingfinancial data for each financial card. For example, the electroniccircuitry 50 may be paired with the vehicle head unit 14 via a Bluetoothconnection. When the user enters a new financial card on the vehiclehead unit, the generated token representing financial data for thefinancial card may be transmitted and/or stored in the electroniccircuitry 50. When the user later selects the financial card for makinga payment, the vehicle head unit 14 may transmit an indication of thefinancial card to the electronic circuitry 50 and the electric circuitry50 may retrieve the corresponding token and/or transmit thecorresponding token to the POS terminal. In other embodiments, thevehicle head unit 14 may transmit the token to the electronic circuitry50 each time the electronic circuitry 50 is called upon in the paymentprocess. The electronic circuitry 50 is described in more detail belowwith reference to FIG. 2B.

C. Exemplary POS Terminal

The POS terminal 20 may be a combination of hardware and softwarecomponents and may include a display, a camera, and/or one or moreprocessor(s) such as a microprocessor coupled to a memory. The POSterminal 20 may also include a wired and/or wireless transceiver fortransmitting/receiving radio signals using NFC, Bluetooth, DSRC, RFID,USB, Wi-Fi, etc. The POS terminal 20 may communicate with the vehiclehead unit 14 and/or the electronic circuitry via a short-range and/orvery short-range communication link. Additionally, the POS terminal 20may communicate with other devices via a wired and/or wirelesslong-range communication network 130 such as a proprietary network, asecure public Internet, a wide area network (WAN), the Internet, and/orsome other type of network, such as dedicated access lines, plainordinary telephone lines, satellite links, combinations of these, etc.Where the digital network 130 comprises the Internet, data communicationmay take place over the digital network 130 via an Internetcommunication protocol. For example, upon receiving a token and/orfinancial data for a financial card the POS terminal 20 may transmit thereceived data to an acquiring bank server which may in turn transmit thereceived data to an issuing bank server for the financial card. Theissuing bank server may then transmit an indication back to the POSterminal 20 that the payment has been accepted. For example, the issuingbank server may communicate with the third party token server 104 toretrieve the financial data corresponding to the token and generate acharge for the corresponding financial card. Alternatively, the issuingbank server may obtain the financial card corresponding to the tokenand/or financial data in any other suitable manner. In other scenarios,when the received data cannot be verified at the issuing bank server orthe corresponding financial card does not have a sufficient balanceand/or sufficient credit to make the payment, the issuing bank servermay transmit an indication to the POS terminal 20 that the payment hasbeen declined.

While the POS terminal 20 is depicted in FIG. 1 as attached to a fuelstation, this is merely one example embodiment. The POS terminal 20 maybe a stand-alone device, may be attached to a drive-thru window at adrive-thru and/or car wash, and/or may be presented in any othersuitable manner.

D. Exemplary Token Server

According to embodiments, the third-party token server 104 may be acombination of hardware and software components, also as described inmore detail below. The third-party token server 104 may have anassociated database for storing tokens, the financial data representedby the tokens, and/or the financial cards corresponding to the financialdata. Moreover, the third-party token server 104 may include one or moreprocessor(s) such as a microprocessor coupled to a memory.

The memory may be tangible, non-transitory memory and may include anytypes of suitable memory modules, including random access memory (RAM),read-only memory (ROM), flash memory, other types of persistent memory,etc. The memory may store, for example instructions executable on theprocessors for generating/transmitting tokens and/or storing the tokenswith associated financial data/financial cards.

It will be appreciated that although only one third-party token server104 is depicted in FIG. 1 , multiple third-party token servers 104 maybe provided for the purpose of distributing server load, servingdifferent web pages, etc. These multiple third-party token servers 104may include a web server, an entity-specific server (e.g. an Apple®server, etc.), a server that is disposed in a retail or proprietarynetwork, etc.

The third-party token server 104 may communicate with the vehicle headunit 14 via the network 130. For example, the vehicle head unit 14 maytransmit financial data for a financial card to the third-party tokenserver 104 and in turn, the third-party token server maygenerate/transmit a token representing the financial data to the vehiclehead unit 14. The vehicle payment application in the vehicle head unit14 may then store the token with an indication of the financial cardand/or transmit the token when making a payment with the correspondingfinancial card.

II. EXEMPLARY SYSTEM HARDWARE

A. Exemplary Vehicle Head Unit

Turning now to FIG. 2A, the vehicle head unit 14, may include a display236 similar to the display 18 as shown in FIG. 1 , a communication unit238, a user-input device (not shown), a camera and/or other image sensor(not shown), and/or a controller 224. The controller 224 may include aprogram memory 226, a microcontroller or a microprocessor (MP) 228, arandom-access memory (RAM) 230, and/or an input/output (I/O) circuit234, all of which may be interconnected via an address/data bus 232. Theprogram memory 226 and the microprocessor 228 may be similar to thememory and processor respectively, as described in FIG. 1 .

The program memory 226 may include an operating system 260, a datastorage 262, a plurality of software applications 264, and/or aplurality of software routines 268. The operating system 260, forexample, may include iOS®, Android™, Palm® webOS, Windows Mobile/Phone,BlackBerry® OS, Symbian® OS, Microsoft Windows®, OS X®, Linux®, Unix®,etc. The data storage 262 may include data such as user profiles,indications of financial cards, tokens, application data for theplurality of applications 264, routine data for the plurality ofroutines 268, and/or other data necessary to interact with thethird-party token server 104, electronic circuitry 50, and/or POSterminal 20 through the digital network 130, and/or short-range/veryshort-range communication links 120, 122. In some embodiments, thecontroller 224 may also include, or otherwise be communicativelyconnected to, other data storage mechanisms (e.g., one or more hard diskdrives, optical storage drives, solid state storage devices, etc.) thatreside within the vehicle head unit 14.

The communication unit 238 may communicate with the third-party tokenserver 104 via any suitable wireless communication protocol network,such as a wireless telephony network (e.g., GSM, CDMA, LTE, etc.), aWi-Fi network (802.11 standards), a WiMAX network, etc. Additionally,the communication unit 238 may include one or more transceivers andcommunicate with the electronic circuitry 50 and/or POS terminal via anysuitable short-range/very short-range wired or wireless communicationprotocol network, such as USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC, RFID, DSRC, etc.The user-input device (not shown) may include a “soft” keyboard that isdisplayed on the display 236 of the vehicle head unit 14, an externalhardware keyboard such as the hardware input controls 22 as shown inFIG. 1 , or any other suitable user-input device.

It should be appreciated that although FIG. 2A depicts only onemicroprocessor 228, the controller 224 may include multiplemicroprocessors 228. Similarly, the memory of the controller 224 mayinclude multiple RAMs 230 and/or multiple program memories 226. AlthoughFIG. 2A depicts the I/O circuit 234 as a single block, the I/O circuit234 may include a number of different types of I/O circuits. Thecontroller 224 may implement the RAM(s) 230 and/or the program memories226 as semiconductor memories, magnetically readable memories, and/oroptically readable memories, for example.

The one or more processors 228 may be adapted and configured to executeany one or more of the plurality of software applications 264 and/or anyone or more of the plurality of software routines 268 residing in theprogram memory 226, in addition to other software applications. One ofthe plurality of applications 264 may be a vehicle payment application266 that may be implemented as a series of machine-readable instructionsfor performing the various tasks associated with receiving informationat, displaying information on, and/or transmitting information from thevehicle head unit 14.

One of the plurality of applications 264 may be a native applicationand/or web browser 270, such as Apple's Safari®, Google Chrome™,Microsoft Internet Explorer®, and Mozilla Firefox® that may beimplemented as a series of machine-readable instructions for receiving,interpreting, and/or displaying web page information while alsoreceiving inputs from the user. Another application of the plurality ofapplications may include an embedded web browser 276 that may beimplemented as a series of machine-readable instructions for receiving,interpreting, and/or displaying web page information. One of theplurality of routines may include a financial card storage routine 272which obtains financial data for a financial card from the user and/or aportable device, transmits the financial data to a third-party tokenserver 104 and stores a received token with an indication of thefinancial data at the vehicle payment application 266. Another routinein the plurality of routines may include a payment routine 274 thatreceives a selection of a stored financial card and transmits a tokenrepresenting financial data for the financial card to the POS terminal20 for making a payment.

Preferably, a user may launch the vehicle payment application 266 fromthe vehicle head unit 14 to communicate with the third-party tokenserver 104, the electronic circuitry 50 and/or the POS terminal 20 toimplement the vehicle payment system 100. Additionally, the user mayalso launch or instantiate any other suitable user interface application(e.g., the native application or web browser 270, or any other one ofthe plurality of software applications 264) to access the third-partytoken server 104, the electronic circuitry 50 and/or the POS terminal 20to realize the vehicle payment system 100.

In one embodiment, to interact with the vehicle payment system 100, theuser may execute the vehicle payment application 266 on the vehicle headunit 14. Using the vehicle payment application 266, the user may makepayments by navigating a series of vehicle payment application screens.FIGS. 3A-E depict vehicle payment application pages and/or screens thatmay be displayed on the vehicle head unit 14 in various embodiments ofthe vehicle payment system 100. However, the screens depicted in FIGS.3A-E are merely illustrations of an exemplary embodiment. In someembodiments, the vehicle head unit 14 may display web pages. While thevehicle payment application 266 may retrieve application data such asindications of financial cards, tokens, user profiles, etc. from thedata storage 262 as described above, the application data may also bestored in one or more server devices (not shown). In some embodiments,the vehicle payment application 266 may communicate with the one or moreserver devices to transmit/receive server data and/or to implement thevehicle payment system 100.

In any event, the user may launch the vehicle payment application 266from the vehicle head unit 14 via any suitable manner, such astouch-selecting a vehicle payment application icon (not shown) on thedisplay 236 of the vehicle head unit 14 and/or using one of the hardwareinput controls 22. After the user launches the vehicle paymentapplication 266, a payment activation screen of the vehicle paymentapplication 266 may be displayed to the user on the vehicle head unit.

B. Exemplary Electronic Circuitry

Referring now to FIG. 2B, the electronic circuitry 50 (also referred toherein as an “electronic device”) may include an NFC module 240 and acommunication unit 258. The electronic circuitry 50 may be proximatelyattached to the exterior of the vehicle 12. Locations on the interior ofthe vehicle 12 which are within several inches or a foot from theexterior of the vehicle 12 may be proximate to the exterior of thevehicle 12. For example, the electronic circuitry 50 may be attached toa door panel or fuel cap of the vehicle 12 on the exterior of thevehicle 12. In another example, the electronic circuitry 50 may beattached to a fuel cap from the interior of the vehicle 12 and proximateto the exterior of the vehicle 12. In this manner, the electroniccircuitry 50 may be placed in very close proximity of a POS terminal 20(e.g., within one inch, three inches, six inches, a foot, three feet,etc.) to securely transmit financial data or a token representing thefinancial data.

In some embodiments, like the vehicle head unit 14, the electroniccircuitry 50 may also include a controller 242. Similar to thecontroller 224, the controller 242 may include a program memory 246, amicrocontroller or a microprocessor (MP) 248, a random-access memory(RAM) 250, and/or an input/output (I/O) circuit 254, all of which may beinterconnected via an address/data bus 252. The program memory 246 mayinclude a data storage and/or a plurality of software routines. The datastorage may include data such as indications of financial cards, tokens,etc. In some embodiments, the controller 242 may also include, orotherwise be communicatively connected to, other data storage mechanisms(e.g., one or more hard disk drives, optical storage drives, solid statestorage devices, etc.) that reside within the electronic circuitry 50.

The communication unit 258 may include one or more transceivers, andcommunicate with the vehicle head unit 14 and/or the POS terminal 20 viaany suitable short-range/very short-range wired or wirelesscommunication protocol network, such as USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC,RFID, DSRC, etc. For example, using the NFC module 240, thecommunication unit 258 may communicate with the POS terminal using NFC.

As discussed with reference to the controller 224, it should beappreciated that although FIG. 2B depicts only one microprocessor 248,the controller 242 may include multiple microprocessors 248. Similarly,the memory of the controller 242 may include multiple RAMs 250 and/ormultiple program memories 246. Although the FIG. 2B depicts the I/Ocircuit 254 as a single block, the I/O circuit 254 may include a numberof different types of I/O circuits. The controller 242 may implement theRAM(s) 250 and/or the program memories 246 as semiconductor memories,magnetically readable memories, and/or optically readable memories, forexample.

The one or more processors 248 may be adapted and configured to executeany one or more of a plurality of software routines residing in theprogram memory 246. One of the plurality of routines may include adevice recognition routine which identifies devices within range forcommunication, such as a POS terminal 20 which may communicate with theelectronic circuitry 50. Another routine in the plurality of routinesmay include a token transmission routine which retrieves a token fromdata storage in response to receiving an indication of a selectedfinancial card from the vehicle head unit 14. The token may also beretrieved from the vehicle head unit 14. The token transmission routinemay then transmit the obtained token corresponding to the financial cardto a POS terminal.

III. EXEMPLARY SCREENSHOTS OF A VEHICLE PAYMENT APPLICATION

In the present aspects, the following screenshots shown in FIGS. 3A-Eare examples of what may be displayed to a user as part of a vehiclepayment application 266. In the present aspects, the following exemplaryscreenshots shown in FIGS. 3A-E may be displayed on the vehicle headunit 14 as shown in FIG. 1 . As will be appreciated by those of ordinaryskill in the relevant art(s), the exemplary screenshots shown in FIGS.3A-E are for illustrative purposes, and their associated functionalitymay be implemented using any suitable format and/or design forfacilitating their corresponding described functionalities withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure.

Moreover, the following exemplary screenshots shown in FIGS. 3A-E may bepresented on the display 236 of the vehicle head unit 14 when thevehicle is operated by a user. When the vehicle 12 is an autonomousvehicle, the autonomous vehicle may receive and/or interact with theinformation presented by the vehicle payment application 266 withoutpresenting all of the exemplary screenshots. For example, the autonomousvehicle may receive indications of stored financial cards and/or selectone of the stored financial cards for making a payment without theindications being presented on the display 236 of the vehicle head unit14. In other embodiments, the exemplary screenshots may be presented onthe vehicle head unit 14 of the autonomous vehicle to allow users withinthe autonomous vehicle to interact with the vehicle payment application266.

A. Exemplary Financial Card Entry Screen

To add a new financial card or financial account (also referred toherein as a “virtual account”) to the vehicle payment application 266, auser may select a user control such as an “Add Credit/Debit Card” buttonon a home screen (not shown) and/or a financial card selection screen ofthe vehicle payment application 266. With reference now to FIG. 3A, afinancial card entry screen 300 may be displayed on the vehicle headunit 14 when the user selects the “Add Credit/Debit Card” button on thehome screen, financial card selection screen, and/or any other suitablescreen of the vehicle payment application 266.

The financial card entry screen 300 may include a user control 304 forreceiving an image of the financial card at the vehicle head unit 14.For example, the vehicle payment application 266 may instruct the camerawithin the vehicle head unit 14 to capture an image of the user'sfinancial card. The financial card entry screen 300 may include aninstruction to position the financial card within a frame 302, where theframe is included in the user control 304. When a user positions theboundaries of a financial card within the frame of the user control 304,the camera of the vehicle head unit 14 may automatically capture animage of the financial card. In other embodiments, the user may select auser control instructing the capture to capture an image of thefinancial card when the boundaries of the financial card are positionedwithin the frame. The camera may capture one and/or both sides of thefinancial card.

Additionally, the financial card entry screen 300 may include usercontrols 306-312 for manually entering financial data for the financialcard, such as a credit/debit card number 306, a cardholder name 308, anexpiration date 310, a card type 312 (e.g., VISA®, MasterCard®, AmericanExpress®, Discover®, etc.), a CSC code, and/or any other suitableinformation such as a billing address, a card nickname, etc.

When an image of the financial card and/or the financial data for thefinancial card is provided at the financial card entry screen 300, theuser may select a “Submit” button 314 to store an indication of thefinancial card at the vehicle payment application 266. The vehiclepayment application 266 may use various image processing techniques,such as optical character recognition (OCR) to identify the financialdata included in the image of the financial card. Additionally, theindication of the financial card may be an edited version of the imageof the financial card. At least some of the financial data, such as thecardholder name, card number, expiration date and/or CSC code, may beremoved and/or masked using various image processing techniques.Accordingly, the edited version of the image of the financial card maydisplay the shape of the financial card, the background color/image ofthe financial card, the name of the issuer of the financial card (e.g.,Chase™, Bank of America™, Wells Fargo™ Citigroup™, PNC™, Capital One™,etc.), the card type (e.g., VISA®, MasterCard®, American Express®,Discover®, etc.), masked financial data such as the last four digits ofthe financial card, etc. When an image of the financial card is notcaptured and the user manually enters the financial data for thefinancial card instead, the vehicle payment application 266 may createan image of the financial card based upon the entered card type. Forexample, if the card type is American Express®, the vehicle paymentapplication 266 may generate an image of a financial card having a greenbackground color, and/or the name “American Express.”

In some embodiments, when the “Submit” button 314 is selected, thevehicle payment application 266 may transmit the financial dataretrieved from the image of the financial card 304 or manually enteredvia the user controls 306-310, to a third-party token server 104 asshown in FIG. 1 . The third-party token server 104 may then generate atoken which may be a string of randomly generated alphanumeric ornumeric characters that represents the financial data. For example, thetoken may be a 16 digit alphanumeric character string. The third-partytoken server 104 may store the token with the financial data that thetoken represents and/or may transmit the token to the vehicle paymentapplication 266 for additional storage. In some embodiments, thethird-party token server 104 may provide the financial data to theissuing bank for the financial card after receiving the token from theissuing bank when a payment is processed. In other embodiments, thethird-party token server 104 may be the issuing bank. The tokenizationprocess may be completed in any number of ways including but not limitedto the system and method for secure acceptance of customer credit cardnumbers as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/505,599,which is incorporated by reference herein.

In any event, the vehicle payment application 266 may then store theindication of the financial card so that the user may select thefinancial card for making a payment at a financial card selectionscreen, for example. In some embodiments, the token representingfinancial data for the financial card may be stored with the indicationof the financial card. The token may be transmitted when the userselects the financial card for making the payment. In other embodiments,the vehicle payment application 266 may transmit the token to theelectronic circuitry 50 as shown in FIG. 1 , and/or the electroniccircuitry 50 may store the token. In such embodiments, when a userselects a financial card, the vehicle payment application 266 maytransmit an indication to the electronic circuitry 50 that the financialcard has been selected, and the electronic circuitry may retrieve and/ortransmit the token corresponding to the selected financial card.

In addition to capturing an image of the financial card and/or manuallyentering financial data for the financial card at the financial cardentry screen 300, the financial card entry screen 300 may include a usercontrol (not shown) to import the financial card from anotherapplication such as a photo library, email application, etc., and/or anexternal source such as a portable device 10 in communication with thevehicle head unit 14. In this manner, the user may import indications offinancial cards and/or financial data for the financial card fromanother application and/or from the portable device 10 to the vehiclepayment application 266.

B. Exemplary Activation Screen

When the vehicle detects a POS terminal 20, the vehicle paymentapplication 266 may display a payment activation screen 320 as depictedin FIG. 3B. For example, the vehicle head unit 14 and/or electroniccircuitry 50 proximately attached to the exterior of the vehicle maydetect the presence of a Bluetooth signal, RFID signal, NFC signal, DSRCsignal, Wi-Fi signal, etc. In another example, the vehicle head unit 14and/or electronic circuitry 50 proximately attached to the exterior ofthe vehicle may determine that the vehicle is within a predetermineddistance of a POS terminal 20. More specifically, the vehicle head unit14 may obtain locations of merchants (e.g., fuel stations, dry cleaners,fast food or other restaurants, coffee shops, grocery stores,pharmacies, vehicle repair shops, etc.) within a geographic areasurrounding the current location of the vehicle head unit 14. Thevehicle head unit 14 and/or electronic circuitry 50 proximately attachedto the exterior of the vehicle may determine that the vehicle is withina predetermined distance of a POS terminal 20 associated with one of themerchants, when the current location of the vehicle is within thepredetermined distance (e.g., 50 feet, 100 feet, 200 feet, etc.) of oneof the merchants.

In yet another example, a camera located within the vehicle head unit 14or other portion of the vehicle may capture images of an areasurrounding the vehicle. The images may be visible light images, radarimages, infrared images, or any other suitable image within theelectromagnetic spectrum including the visible and invisible lightspectrums. The vehicle head unit 14 may then analyze these images usingvarious digital image processing techniques (such as object recognition,optical character recognition etc.), to identify merchants as well astheir respective locations relative to the location of the vehicle. Whena merchant is identified that is within a predetermined distance of thevehicle, the vehicle may detect a POS terminal 20.

In some embodiments, the vehicle head unit 14 and/or electroniccircuitry 50 may also identify the device transmitting a signal and/or aname of a corresponding network. When the device transmitting the signaland/or the name of the corresponding network is associated with a POSterminal 20, the vehicle payment application 266 may detect a POSterminal 20. In other embodiments, the vehicle payment application 266may detect a POS terminal 20 upon detecting the presence of one of thesignals mentioned above. Additionally, the vehicle head unit 14 mayobtain a list of POS terminals which accepts payments from a vehicleand/or any other type of mobile payments. For example, the vehicle headunit 14 may communicate with a third party server, such as a Departmentof Motor Vehicles (DMV) server to obtain the list. The detected POSterminal 20 may be compared to the list of POS terminals to determinewhether the detected POS terminal 20 accepts vehicle payments.Furthermore, the user may provide a list of preferred merchants and/ormerchant locations. The merchant and/or merchant location associatedwith the detected POS terminal 20 may be compared to the list ofpreferred merchants to determine whether the user authorizes vehiclepayments at the detected POS terminal 20. If the user does not authorizevehicle payments or the detected POS terminal 20 does not accept vehiclepayments, the user may manually purchase goods or services provided bythe merchant or may navigate to another merchant location.

In any event, upon detecting the POS terminal 20, the vehicle paymentapplication 266 may automatically activate and/or display the paymentactivation screen 320. In other embodiments, the user may activate thevehicle payment application 266 by touch-selecting a vehicle paymentapplication icon on the display 236 of the vehicle head unit 14, asdescribed above. In yet other embodiments, the POS terminal 20 mayidentify a vehicle. For example, the POS terminal 20 may detect thepresence of a Bluetooth signal, RFID signal, NFC signal, DSRC signal,Wi-Fi signal, etc. In another example, the POS terminal may capture,with a camera communicatively coupled to the POS terminal 20, images ofan area surrounding the POS terminal 20. The POS terminal 20 may thenanalyze these images using various digital image processing techniques(such as object recognition, optical character recognition etc.), toidentify a vehicle and/or a vehicle license plate number. In yet anotherexample, the POS terminal 20 may receive an indication from the vehiclehead unit 14 and/or electronic circuitry 50 that the vehicle 12 iswithin a predetermined range of the POS terminal 20. As a result, thePOS terminal 20 may transmit the payment activation screen 320 to thevehicle head unit 14 and/or electronic circuitry 50. In addition todisplaying the payment activation screen 320, the POS terminal 20, thevehicle head unit 14, and/or the electronic circuitry 50 may establish acommunication link between the POS terminal 20 and the vehicle head unit14 and/or the electronic circuitry 50. The communication link may be ashort-range communication link (e.g., Bluetooth, DSRC, RFID, Wi-Fi, USB,etc.), a very short-range communication link (e.g., NFC, HF RFID, etc.)or any suitable combination.

In any event, the payment activation screen 320 may include a prompt 322asking the user whether she would like to pay from her vehicle, a “YES”button 324, and/or a “NO” button 326. If the user selects the “YES”button 324 by for example, touch-selecting the display 236 of thevehicle head unit 14 or using one of the hardware input controls, thevehicle payment application 266 may present a financial card selectionscreen on the vehicle head unit 14 for selecting one of the storedfinancial cards, as described in more detail below. On the other hand,if the user selects the “NO” button 326, the vehicle payment application266 may automatically close.

In some embodiments, before presenting the financial card selectionscreen, the POS terminal 20 may transmit data over a short-rangecommunication link 120 to the vehicle head unit 14, and/or over firstand second short-range/very short-range communication links 120, 122 tothe electronic circuitry 50 and then to the head unit 14. For example,when the establishment associated with the POS terminal 20 is a fuelstation, the data may include a request for the user to provide afinancial card to the POS terminal 20 before filling up with fuel, whichmay be presented on the display 236 of the vehicle head unit 14. Thenwhen the fueling process is over, the POS terminal 20 may transmitadditional data including the amount of fuel provided to the vehicle,the total cost of the fuel, and/or a request to authorize payment forthe total cost of the fuel using the financial card provided to the POSterminal 20. The additional data may be presented on the display 236 ofthe vehicle head unit 14.

In another example, the establishment associated with the POS terminal20 may be another type of establishment which provides goods or servicesat or nearby a user's vehicle, such as a drive-thru or a car wash. ThePOS terminal 20 may transmit data including the total cost of the goodsor services and/or a request for the user to transmit payment to the POSterminal 20. In some embodiments, the user may be prompted to providepermission for the vehicle head unit 14 and/or the electronic circuitry50 to receive the data from the POS terminal 20.

In some embodiments, the vehicle payment application 266 may store userpreferences and/or other information indicative of retailers/merchantspreferred by the user. For example, the user may provide indications ofpreferred retailers/merchants and/or services, goods, or items that theuser likes to purchase via the display 236 of the vehicle head unit 14.Additionally, the vehicle payment application 266 may identify userpreferences based upon previous purchases made by the user and theestablishments and/or types of services, goods, or items that the usertypically purchases.

When the vehicle head unit 14 and/or the electronic circuitry 50 detectsthe presence of short-range/very short-range wireless signal and/oridentifies the device transmitting the signal, the vehicle paymentapplication 266 may determine whether the device is associated with anestablishment (also referred to herein as a “point of interest (POI)”)and/or services, goods, or items which are preferred by the user. Whenthe device is associated with a preferred establishment/item and iswithin a threshold distance of the vehicle 12, the vehicle paymentapplication 266 may present a message to the user that a preferredestablishment/item is nearby. The vehicle payment application 266 mayalso present an indication of the distance to the preferredestablishment/item and/or an indication of the preferredestablishment/item such as a name of the preferred establishment/item.Moreover, the vehicle payment application 266 may also display a map ofa geographic area including the user's current location with anindication, such as a pin which marks the location of the preferredestablishment/item. In another embodiment, the map display may includeseveral indications which mark the locations of preferredestablishments/items and/or any other merchants which accept vehiclepayments. The vehicle payment application 266 may also determine thedistance between the vehicle and each of the preferredestablishments/items and/or other merchants based upon their respectivepositions within the map display.

In some embodiments, the vehicle payment application 266 may providenavigation directions to the location of the preferredestablishment/item or a location of one of several preferredestablishments/items that is selected by a user. For example, the usermay touch-select one of the preferred establishment/items on the mapdisplay. In another example, the user may provide a type of goods orservices that the user wants to purchase. For example, the user mayrequest a fast food restaurant. The vehicle payment application 266 maythen identify one of the preferred establishment/items included in themap display that provides the type of goods or services that the userwants to purchase. In yet another example, when the vehicle is anautonomous vehicle, the vehicle payment application 266 may identify atype of goods or services that needs to be purchased, such as fuel forthe vehicle. The vehicle payment application 266 may then identify oneof the preferred establishment/items included in the map display thatprovides fuel. For example, the vehicle payment application 266 mayidentify the closest preferred merchant location that provides fueland/or any other suitable merchant location on the map display thatprovides fuel.

The navigation directions may be a set of turn-by-turn navigationinstructions for traversing from the current location of the vehicle tothe location of the preferred establishment/item. In some embodiments,the vehicle payment application 266 may communicate with a third partyserver, such as a map server and/or a navigation server which mayprovide the map data and/or navigation data for displaying a map andnavigation directions. For example, the map server may provideindications of several merchant locations to the vehicle paymentapplication 266. The vehicle payment application 266 may then determinewhich of the merchant locations are within a geographic area surroundingthe user's current location. Accordingly, the vehicle paymentapplication 266 may generate a map display of the geographic area andinclude the indications of merchant location within the geographic areaon the map display. The map display may be presented on display 18 ofthe vehicle head unit 14.

When the vehicle is driven by the user, the navigation directions may beprovided audibly via the speakers of the vehicle head unit 14 orvisually, where the navigation directions overlay the map display. Forexample, the vehicle payment application 266 may highlight or otherwiseannotate the roads, streets, etc. included in the turn-by-turnnavigation directions for traversing from the current location of thevehicle to the location of the preferred establishment/item. When thevehicle is an autonomous vehicle, the navigation directions may be a setof instructions provided to the autonomous vehicle for navigating to thepreferred establishment/item. The instructions may include indicationsof upcoming maneuvers such as turns, distances in which an upcomingmaneuver needs to be made (e.g., turning left in three miles), and/orany other suitable instructions for guiding the autonomous vehicle tothe preferred establishment/item.

Also in some embodiments, when the user selects the “YES” button 324indicating she would like to make a payment from her vehicle, thevehicle payment application 266 may authenticate the user to ensure sheis authorized to use the stored financial cards to make payments. Thevehicle payment application 266 may store biometric information forauthorized users, such as fingerprint data, facial data, retinal data,voice data, weight data, etc. To authenticate the user, the vehiclepayment application 266 may retrieve a biometric identifier from theuser. For example, the vehicle head unit 14 may capture an image of theuser, a microphone in the vehicle head unit 14 may capture voice datafor the user, the user may press a finger on the vehicle head unit 14for the vehicle payment application 266 to receive fingerprint data,weight or pressure sensors in the vehicle may determine the weight ofthe user, and/or a biometric identifier for the user may be obtained inany other suitable manner. The vehicle payment application 266 may thenverify the received biometric identifier by comparing the obtainedbiometric identifier to stored biometric information for authorizedusers. If the obtained biometric identifier matches the stored biometricinformation, the vehicle payment application 266 may determine the useris an authorized user and present the financial card selection screen,as described below.

In some scenarios, for example when the vehicle is an autonomousvehicle, the vehicle payment application 266 may authenticate thevehicle to ensure that the vehicle is authorized to use the storedfinancial cards to make payments. For example, a camera within thevehicle head unit 14 or another portion of the vehicle may capture animage of the license plate. Using digital image processing techniquessuch as objection recognition and/or optical character recognition, thevehicle head unit 14 may identify the license plate number for thevehicle. The license plate number may be compared to a stored licenseplate number for an authorized vehicle. If the obtained license platenumber matches the stored license plate number, the vehicle paymentapplication 266 may determine the vehicle is an authorized vehicle andpresent the financial card selection screen, as described below. In someembodiments, the vehicle payment application 266 and/or the POS terminal20 may transmit the license plate number or other vehicle identificationinformation (e.g., a make/model of the vehicle, a vehicle identificationnumber (VIN), etc.) to a third party server for verifying that theautonomous vehicle has not been stolen. The third party server may thencompare the vehicle identification information to stolen vehicle recordsto ensure that the autonomous vehicle has not been stolen.

In other embodiments, the POS terminal 20 may authenticate the vehicleand/or a user within the vehicle by receiving a biometric identifierfrom the user and/or vehicle identification information. The biometricidentifier and/or vehicle identification information may be compared toa database of authorized users or vehicles, and if there is a match, thePOS terminal 20 may verify that the user and/or vehicle is authorized tomake vehicle payments. For example, when an autonomous vehicle isauthorized to make vehicle payments using a particular financial card, auser may register the autonomous vehicle as an authorized vehicle. Insome embodiments, the financial card or virtual account may also beregistered with the user and/or vehicle. Accordingly, when the userand/or vehicle transmits financial data/virtual account information forthe financial card/virtual account to the POS terminal 20, the POSterminal 20 may verify that the user and/or vehicle is authorized tomake payments with the financial card/virtual account.

The vehicle payment application 266 may also store a username and/orpassword, a PIN number, and/or any other unique identifier forauthorized users. To authenticate the user, the vehicle paymentapplication 266 may receive login information, such a username andpassword, a PIN number, or identification information from anauthenticated key fob and verify the login information by comparing thelogin information to the stored unique identifier. When there is amatch, the vehicle payment application 266 may determine that the useris an authorized user. In yet other embodiments, the vehicle head unit14 may detect the presence of a portable device 10, for example from ashort-range/very short-range communication link. The portable device 10may be used to authenticate the user by transmitting a unique identifierto the vehicle head unit 14 and/or transmitting any other suitableinformation indicating that the portable device 10 belongs to anauthorized user. If the user is not authenticated, the vehicle paymentapplication 266 may not display the financial card selection screenand/or may continue to receive a biometric identifier and/or logininformation for the user.

As mentioned above, when the vehicle 12 is an autonomous vehicle, thevehicle payment application 266 may not display the payment activationscreen 320. Instead, the autonomous vehicle may communicate with thevehicle payment application 266 to initiate the payment process.

C. Exemplary Financial Card Selection Screen

In response to the user selecting the “YES” button 324 on the paymentactivation screen 320 and/or authenticating the user, the vehiclepayment application 266 may present a financial card selection screen340 as depicted in FIG. 3C. The vehicle payment application 266 may alsopresent the financial card selection screen 340 in response to a requestfrom the POS terminal 20 to provide a financial card and/or transmitpayment to the POS terminal. In any event, the financial card selectionscreen 340 may include indications of financial cards 342-348 which wereadded at the financial card entry screen 300 as shown in FIG. 3A. Thefinancial card selection screen 340 may also include user controls forselecting the financial cards. For example, a user may select theDiscover® card 346 by touch-selecting the area of the display 236 whichincludes the Discover® card 346.

As mentioned above, each of the indications of financial cards 342-348may include an edited version of the image of the financial card whereat least some of the financial data, such as the cardholder name, cardnumber, and/or expiration date, is removed and/or masked. Accordingly,the edited version of the image of the financial card may display theshape of the financial card, the background color/image of the financialcard, the name of the issuer of the financial card (e.g., Chase™, Bankof America™, Wells Fargo™, Citigroup™, PNC™, Capital One™, etc.), thecard type (e.g., VISA®, MasterCard®, American Express®, Discover®,etc.), masked financial data such as the last four digits of the cardnumber, etc. For example, the indication of the VISA® card 344 includesa rectangular image having Bank of America™ as the name of the issuingbank, VISA® as the card type, and a red background color. The user maytouch-select the VISA® card 344, and as a result the vehicle paymentapplication 266 may present a payment authorization screen, as describedin more detail below in FIG. 3D.

While the indications of financial cards 342-348 are displayed adjacentto each other in the financial card selection screen 340, this is merelyan exemplary embodiment. In other embodiments, the indications offinancial cards 342 may be displayed such that they are layered on topof each other where a portion of some of the indications 342-348 isoccluded. Moreover, the indications of financial cards 342-348 maydisplayed on the financial card selection screen 340 in any suitablemanner to allow the user to select one of the financial cards.Furthermore, additional and/or alternative information may be includedin the indications of financial cards, such as a nickname for thefinancial card, a billing address for the financial card, and/or anyother suitable information.

As mentioned above, when the vehicle 12 is an autonomous vehicle, thevehicle payment application 266 may not display the financial cardselection screen 340. Instead, the autonomous vehicle may communicatewith the vehicle payment application 266 to select a financial card. Forexample, the autonomous vehicle may select one of the stored financialcards based upon the credit limits for the stored financial cards, anamount of money corresponding to each of the stored financial cards, apreference for a particular financial card previously indicated by auser, or in any other suitable manner.

D. Exemplary Payment Authorization Screen

Turning now to FIG. 3D, a payment authorization screen 360 may bepresented by the vehicle payment application 266, when the user selectsa financial card for making a payment. The payment authorization screen360 may include an indication of the selected financial card 362, arequest to transmit payment 364, and/or “YES” and “NO” buttons 366, 368.In some embodiments, the payment authorization screen 360 may alsoinclude an indication of the goods or services purchased and/or a totalcost of the goods or services provided by the establishment associatedwith the POS terminal 20. When the establishment is a fuel station, thetotal cost may not be available and instead, the user may provide thefinancial card to the POS terminal 20 before receiving fuel. Then whenthe fueling process is finished, the vehicle payment application 266 maypresent an additional screen (not shown) to authorize payment for thetotal cost of the fuel. The additional screen may display the totalcost.

In some embodiments, the POS terminal 20 may also transmit links toloyalty reward programs, which may be presented on the paymentauthorization screen 360. In this manner, the user may receive loyaltyreward points for transmitting the payment and/or may receive discountson the purchase. Further, the vehicle payment application 266 mayinclude spending limits for each of the stored financial cards, whichmay be monthly spending limits, yearly spending limits, etc. Forexample, a parent and/or guardian of the user may set a monthly spendinglimit on one of the stored financial cards. When transmitting thepayment would cause the user to exceed the allotted spending limit forthe financial card, the payment authorization screen 360 may include amessage indicating that the payment would cause the financial card toexceed the spending limit and/or requesting the user to select anotherfinancial card. In some scenarios, the user may be able to override thespending limit, for example by entering an emergency override code,receiving permission from the parent and/or guardian who entered thespending limit, etc.

In any event, when the user selects the “YES” button 366, the POSterminal 20 may receive a token representing financial data (e.g., acardholder name, a card number, an expiration date, card type, and/or aCSC code) for the financial card. For example, the vehicle paymentapplication 266 may transmit the token for the financial card to the POSterminal 20 via a short-range communication link. In another example,the vehicle payment application 266 may transmit the token for thefinancial card to the electronic circuitry 50 proximately attached tothe exterior of the vehicle 12 via a first short-range communicationlink, which may in turn transmit the token for the financial card to thePOS terminal 20 via a second very short-range communication link, suchas NFC, HF RFID, etc.

In yet another example, the vehicle payment application 266 may havetransmitted the token for the financial card to the electronic circuitry50 when the financial card was initially added to the vehicle paymentapplication 266. When the user selects the financial card by selectingthe “YES” button 366, the vehicle payment application 266 may transmitan indication of the selected financial card to the electronic circuitry50. The indication may be the card type, the name of the issuing bank,the last four digits of the card number, and/or a combination of these.The electronic circuitry 50 may in turn, retrieve the tokencorresponding to the selected financial card, and/or transmit the tokento the POS terminal 20. The POS terminal 20 may then use the token toprocess the payment from the selected financial card.

On the other hand, when the user selects the “NO” button 368, thevehicle payment application 266 may display the financial card selectionscreen 340 as shown in FIG. 3C to allow the user to select anotherfinancial card.

When the establishment associated with the POS terminal 20 is a fuelstation, the vehicle payment system 100 may include furtherfunctionality in addition to making payments from a vehicle. Forexample, when the user selects the “YES” button 366 to transmit thetoken for the financial card to the POS terminal 20, the vehicle paymentapplication 266 may cause the fuel cap of the vehicle 12 toautomatically be opened for receiving fuel. In some embodiments, thefuel cap of the vehicle 12 may be a door which may be attached to a dooropening/closing mechanism such as a lever. The electronic circuitry 50proximately attached to the exterior of the vehicle 12 may becommunicatively coupled to the door opening/closing mechanism and maycontrol the door opening/closing mechanism. In addition to transmittingthe token for the financial card, the vehicle payment application 266may transmit a request to the electronic circuitry 50 to open the door.In other embodiments, the vehicle head unit 14 may be communicativelycoupled to the door opening/closing mechanism and may transmit a controlsignal to the door opening/closing mechanism to open the door.

The fuel tank of the vehicle 12 may also open automatically when thenozzle which provides the fuel makes contact with the fuel tank opening.For example, the fuel tank opening may expand when receiving pressurefrom the nozzle and/or condense when the nozzle is removed from the fueltank opening. In some embodiments, the fuel tank opening may be made ofan elastic material which stretches when receiving pressure from thenozzle.

Additionally in some embodiments, the fuel pump at the fuel station maybe a smart fuel pump and the nozzle may be controlled automatically, forexample via a robotic/mechanical arm. Accordingly, when the POS terminal20 receives the token and the fuel cap is opened, the vehicle head unit14 and/or the electronic circuitry 50 may transmit a signal to the POSterminal 20 indicating that the fuel cap is opened and requesting thePOS terminal 20 to provide fuel to the vehicle 12. In some embodiments,the robotic/mechanical arm may include one or several sensors to detectthe height and/or position of the fuel tank opening (e.g., via proximitysensors, such as ultrasonic, infrared, or radar sensors or any othersuitable sensors that transmit light beams to detect distance and/orshape) and/or to detect that the fuel tank is open (e.g., via variousimage processing techniques). The robotic/mechanical arm and/or thesmart fuel pump may also calculate the distance between the fuel pumpand the fuel tank opening and/or compare this distance to apredetermined maximum distance for placing the nozzle within the fueltank opening. In other embodiments, the vehicle head unit 14 and/or theelectronic circuitry 50 may transmit the position of the fuel tankopening to the POS terminal 20, including the height off the ground ofthe fuel tank opening, the distance between the fuel tank opening andthe POS terminal, etc. When the fuel tank opening is within thepredetermined maximum distance and/or the vehicle is not moving, therobotic/mechanical arm may automatically place the nozzle within thefuel tank opening and provide fuel to the vehicle 12.

On the other hand, when the fuel tank opening is outside thepredetermined maximum distance, the POS terminal 20 may transmit asignal to the vehicle head unit 14 and/or the electronic circuitry 50requesting that the vehicle 12 be moved to a particular location. Forexample, when the vehicle 12 is user-operated the POS terminal 20 maytransmit a request to move to a particular location which may bepresented on the display 236 of the vehicle head unit 14. In otherembodiments, the POS terminal 20 may include speakers and may transmit avoice announcement directing the user to the particular location. In yetother embodiments, the POS terminal 20 may transmit an image of theposition of the vehicle 12 with an indication of a position that thevehicle need to move to, such as a rectangular outline. The image may bepresented on the display 236 of the vehicle head unit 14.

When the vehicle 12 is autonomous or semi-autonomous, the request may betransmitted to the vehicle head unit 14 to communicate with the softwarewhich controls operation of the vehicle. In any event, the request tomove to a particular location may include a request to move the vehicle12 forward a particular distance, to move the vehicle 12 in reverse aparticular distance 12, to move the vehicle 12 a particular distancetoward the fuel pump, and/or a combination of these. When the vehicle 12moves within the predetermined maximum distance, the robotic arm mayautomatically place the nozzle within the fuel tank opening and providefuel to the vehicle 12. In some embodiments, the autonomous orsemi-autonomous vehicle 12 may automatically navigate to the merchantlocation associated with the POS terminal 20. The autonomous orsemi-autonomous vehicle 12 may also automatically position itself forreceiving the goods or services provided by the merchant, such aspositioning the autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicle 12 to receive fuelfrom a nozzle.

In this manner, the entire fueling process may be controlledautomatically without requiring the user to leave his car. Instead, theuser may pay for and fill his vehicle with fuel simply by selectingcontrols on the vehicle head unit 14. Also when the vehicle 12 isautonomous, the autonomous vehicle may travel to the fuel station,receive fuel, and/or pay for the fuel without any assistance from ahuman.

In addition to making payments from a vehicle, automatically opening andclosing a fuel cap and/or communicating with a robotic arm, theelectronic circuitry 50 and/or the vehicle head unit 14 may communicatewith a fuel level sensor in the fuel tank. The vehicle 12 may include afuel level sensor which measures the amount of fuel in the fuel tank.The electronic circuitry 50 and/or the vehicle head unit 14 may becommunicatively coupled to the fuel level sensor.

When the user selects the “YES” button 366 to transmit the token for thefinancial card and/or open the fuel cap of the vehicle 12, theelectronic circuitry 50 and/or the vehicle head unit 14 may measure theamount of fuel in the fuel tank via the fuel level sensor. Theelectronic circuitry 50 and/or the vehicle head unit 14 may perform anadditional measurement of the amount of fuel at the end of the fuelingprocess. Based upon these measurements, the vehicle head unit 14 and/orthe electronic circuitry 50 may determine the amount of fuel provided tothe vehicle from the fuel pump based upon a change in the amount of fuelbefore and after the fueling process. As a result, the vehicle head unit14 and/or the electronic circuitry 50 may estimate a total cost of thefuel based upon the amount of fuel provided to the vehicle. Theestimated total cost may be compared to the total cost generated by thePOS terminal 20. When the estimated total cost and the total costgenerated by the POS terminal 20 differ by more than a threshold amount(e.g., 10 percent), the vehicle head unit 14 and/or the electroniccircuitry 50 may detect a fraudulent charge. Accordingly, the electroniccircuitry 50 may transmit an indication that the payment should not beauthorized to the vehicle head unit 14, and/or the vehicle paymentapplication 266 may present a recommendation on the vehicle head unit 14not to authorize payment for the fuel.

In other embodiments, the electronic circuitry 50 and/or the vehiclehead unit 14 may communicate with a fuel level sensor in the fuel tankto identify when the vehicle needs fuel. For example, when the fuellevel is below a predetermined threshold (e.g., one-quarter of a tank),the vehicle head unit 14 may determine that the vehicle needs fuel.Accordingly, the vehicle head unit 14 may provide an indication to theuser that the vehicle needs fuel and/or may provide a map displayincluding navigation directions to the nearest fuel station whichaccepts vehicle payments. When the vehicle is an autonomous orsemi-autonomous vehicle, the vehicle head unit 14 may automaticallyprovide instructions for the vehicle to navigate to the nearest fuelstation and/or a preferred fuel station which accepts vehicle payments.In addition to detecting fraudulent charges and identifying when thevehicle needs fuel, the fuel level sensor may also be used to determinethat the fuel tank is full. When the fuel tank is full, the electroniccircuitry 50 and/or the vehicle head unit 14 may communicate with thePOS terminal 20, so that the smart fuel pump stops providing fuel.

E. Exemplary Electronic Receipt Screen

After the user authorizes payment for the goods or services and thepayment is accepted, an electronic receipt screen 380 as shown in FIG.3E may be presented by the vehicle payment application 266. Theelectronic receipt screen 380 may include information indicative of thepayment 382, including the name of the establishment where the goods orservices were purchased (John's Gas Station), the date, the total amountpaid, the card type, a masked card number, etc. In some embodiments, theelectronic receipt may also be sent to the user's portable device 10 orother computing device, via email, short message service (SMS), etc.Additionally, the POS terminal 20 may cause the goods or servicespurchased to be provided. In the example above, the POS terminal 20 mayinstruct the robotic/mechanical arm to place the nozzle within the fueltank opening and provide fuel to the vehicle 12 by opening a smart valveto allow fuel to flow into the fuel tank and closing the smart valvewhen the fuel tank is full. In another example, the POS terminal 20 mayprovide instructions to merchant employees to process a food order,deliver dry cleaning, a prescription, etc. More specifically, the POSterminal 20 may determine that a passenger within the vehicle 12 has aprescription that needs to be filled or delivered to the passenger.

IV. EXEMPLARY FLOW DIAGRAM FOR VEHICLE PAYMENT SYSTEM

FIG. 4 depicts a flow diagram representing an exemplary method 400 forusing a vehicle as a payment device. The method 400 may be executed onthe vehicle head unit 14, the electronic circuitry 50 proximatelyattached to the exterior of the vehicle, and/or a combination of thesedevices. In some embodiments, a portion of the method 400 may beimplemented in a set of instructions stored on a non-transitorycomputer-readable memory and executable on one or more processors of thevehicle head unit 14. For example, a portion of the method 400 may beperformed by the vehicle payment application 266 of FIG. 2A. Anotherportion of the method 400 may be implemented in another set ofinstructions stored on another non-transitory computer-readable memoryand executable on one or more processors of the electronic circuitry 50.

At block 402, the vehicle payment application 266 may receive financialdata for a financial card or financial account, such as a cardholdername, an expiration date, a card number, and/or a CSC code. For example,a user may select a user control such as an “Add Credit/Debit Card”button on a home screen (not shown) and/or a financial card selectionscreen of the vehicle payment application 266. The vehicle paymentapplication 266 may then capture an image of the financial card using acamera in the vehicle head unit 14, receive manually entered financialdata for the financial card from the user, import the financial cardfrom another application such as a photo library, email application,etc., and/or an external source such as a portable device 10 incommunication with the vehicle head unit 14, etc.

The vehicle payment application 266 may obtain a token representing thefinancial data for the financial card (block 404). In some embodiments,to obtain a token the vehicle payment application 266 may transmit thefinancial data to a third-party token server 104 as shown in FIG. 1 ,which may in turn generate and/or store the token with the financialdata that the token represents. Moreover, the third-party token server104 may transmit the token to the vehicle payment application 266.

At block 406, the vehicle payment application 266 may receive a requestto initiate a payment process. For example, the user may select a usercontrol from a payment activation screen of the vehicle paymentapplication 266 indicating the user would like to make a payment fromher vehicle. In some embodiments, the payment activation screen may bedisplayed automatically upon detecting the presence of a wireless signaltransmitted by a POS terminal 20. In other embodiments, the user mayselect a vehicle payment application icon to display the paymentactivation screen.

In any event, the vehicle payment application 266 may authenticate theuser to ensure she is authorized to use stored financial cards to makepayments (block 408). The vehicle payment application 266 may storebiometric information for authorized users, a unique identifier forauthorized users, and/or any other suitable information for identifyingauthorized users. Moreover, the vehicle payment application 266 mayrequest the user to submit a biometric identifier, for example bycapturing an image of the user's face and/or by pressing a finger on thedisplay 236 of the vehicle head unit 14. The vehicle payment application266 may also request the user to enter login information, such as ausername and password, a PIN number, etc. When the biometric identifierand/or login information for the user matches the stored biometricinformation and/or unique identifier for authorized users, the user maybe authenticated. Otherwise, the vehicle payment application 266 maycontinue to receive biometric identifiers and/or login information fromthe user to find a match.

When the user is authenticated, the vehicle payment application 266 mayreceive a selection of a financial card (block 410), for example via afinancial card selection screen. The financial card selection screen mayinclude indications of one or several financial cards stored at thevehicle payment application 266, and the user may select one of thefinancial cards displayed on the financial card selection screen.

Upon selecting a financial card and/or authorizing payment using theselected financial card, the vehicle payment application 266 maytransmit a token representing the financial data for the financial cardto electronic circuitry 50 proximately attached to the exterior of thevehicle 12 (block 412). The token may be transmitted via a firstshort-range communication link. For example, the vehicle head unit 14and the electronic circuitry 50 may be paired using Bluetooth, and thedata may be transmitted over the Bluetooth communication protocol. Inother embodiments, the data may be transmitted over any other suitableshort-range communication link, such as Wi-Fi, USB, DSRC, RFID, etc.Also in some embodiments, the vehicle payment application 266 may havetransmitted the token for the financial card to the electronic circuitry50 when the financial card was initially added to the vehicle paymentapplication 266. When the user selects the financial card, the vehiclepayment application 266 may transmit an indication of the selectedfinancial card to the electronic circuitry 50.

The electronic circuitry 50 may then transmit the token for thefinancial card to a POS terminal 20 for making the payment (block 414).The data may be transmitted over a second very short-range communicationlink, such as NFC, HF RFID, etc. While the method 400 includestransmitting the token for the financial card from the vehicle head unit14 to the POS terminal 20 via electronic circuitry 50 proximatelyattached to the exterior of the vehicle, this is merely an exemplaryembodiment. In other embodiments, the token may be transmitted directlyfrom the vehicle head unit 14 to the POS terminal 20.

In any event, upon receiving the token, the POS terminal 20 may processthe payment from the user. If the payment is accepted, the POS terminal20 may transmit an electronic receipt (block 416) to be presented on thedisplay 236 of the vehicle head unit 14. Additionally, the electronicreceipt may be transmitted to a portable device 10 of the user viaemail, SMS, etc. On the other hand, if the payment is declined, the POSterminal 20 may transmit a message to be presented on the display 236 ofthe vehicle head unit 14 indicating that the selected financial card hasbeen declined and/or to select a different method of payment. The methodmay include additional, fewer, or alternative actions, including thosediscussed elsewhere herein.

V. EXEMPLARY COMMUNICATION FLOW FOR VEHICLE PAYMENTS

FIG. 5 depicts a connected vehicle 12 configured for use as a paymentdevice, and an exemplary wireless communication flow 500 from aconnected vehicle to various merchants having merchant communicationterminals configured to accept vehicle pay. Virtual vehicle pay (orvehicle payments) may be used to purchase various goods, such as fastfood, dry cleaning, coffee, tolls, car washes, drive thru pharmacy,emergency room services, and/or routine vehicle maintenance.

As shown, a standard purchase flow 510 may include (1) presenting priceand/or product information 512, such as on a vehicle central console,vehicle navigation unit, or infotainment system. The price/productinformation may be transmitted to the vehicle from a merchantcommunication terminal or server via wireless communication and/or datatransmission over a radio frequency link. In one embodiment, the priceand/or product information may be transmitted over a short-rangewireless communication channel. After which, a driver or passenger mayclick or touch an “OK” or other icon on a display screen of a vehicleinfotainment system or the like to authorize purchase.

The standard purchase flow 510 may include (2) transmitting financialpayment data 514 from the vehicle to the merchant communication terminalor server. The financial payment data may include information related tothe name of the driver or passenger, their billing address, CSV, atokenized card number (such as a credit or debit card), and/or one ormore tokens or encryption or other keys used to facilitate securefinancial transactions.

The standard purchase flow 510 may include (3) providing an electronicreceipt 516 for goods or services purchased via the vehicle payment. Thereceipt may be emailed to the driver or passenger's mobile device, orstored in a cloud location accessible by the vehicle or a mobile device.

Also shown in FIG. 5 is an exemplary gas purchase flow 520. The gaspurchase flow 520 may include (1) sending or transmitting financialpayment data 522 to a merchant or gas station communication terminal orserver via wireless communication or data transmission over a radiofrequency link. In one embodiment, a short-range wireless communicationchannel may be used. The financial payment data may include a tokenizedcard number, name, billing address, CSV, and/or tokens or encryptionkeys to enable secure financial transactions.

The gas purchase flow 520 may include (2) the merchant or gas stationcommunication terminal or server transmitting price and/or productinformation 524 before and/or after fueling the vehicle. Theprice/product information may include price per gallon of gasolineand/or number of gallons to be purchased, or that have already beenpumped. The price and/or product information may be transmitted over theshort-range wireless communication channel.

The gas purchase flow 520 may include (3) the driver or passenger beingpresented with the price and/or product information 526, such as via adisplay of a vehicle infotainment system, vehicle navigation system, orcentral control console. After the user touches an “OK” icon or thelike, the vehicle may transmit, such as over the short-range wirelesscommunication channel, an authorization to the gas station communicationterminal to charge an amount indicated to pay for the gasolinepurchased.

The gas purchase flow 520 may include (4) the gas station communicationterminal or server transmitting an electronic receipt 528 detailing thepurchase of gasoline. The receipt may be, for example, emailed to theuser's mobile device, to the vehicle, or sent to a mail box located oraccessible via the cloud.

In one embodiment, the driver or passenger financial information (or anaccount associated with the vehicle itself) (or even driver or passengerbiometric data stored in database, with the driver's or passenger'spermission or affirmative consent) may be required to be received andverified by the gas station communication terminal, such as a “smart”gas pump, before the smart gas pump will be activated, or otherwise pumpor transfer gasoline to the vehicle's gas tank.

In another embodiment, upon entering the vehicle, the driver orpassenger may be authenticated by one or more of the following: PIN,voice recognition, facial scan, finger print scan, retina scan,authenticated key fob, presence and/or identification of a mobile device(e.g., smart phone, smart watch, or wearable electronics). The data maybe transmitted from the vehicle to a merchant computer or terminal byRFID, DSRC powered signals, Bluetooth low energy, or Wi-Fi signals. Theprimary driver interface may be the infotainment system of the vehicle,vehicle navigation system, and/or an autonomous vehicle controller orcontrol system, for examples.

Additional features may include the ability of the vehicle communicationsystem/controller to cap spending for each user, each user account,and/or a vehicle account (such as virtual account established for anautonomous vehicle to insure that the autonomous vehicle has access to,or is authorized a certain amount of monies to pay for gasoline orvehicle maintenance). For instance, a parent may cap a teen's account ata given level. Payment methods may include the use of toggle buttons.

A link to merchant loyalty reward programs may be associated with thevarious user or vehicle financial accounts used. Other links may beprovided, such as links to insurance provider accounts, banking or debitaccounts, and/or links to provide medical insurance or health insuranceprovider and account information upon a visit to a doctor, hospital,clinic, or emergency room.

VI. EXEMPLARY SMART WIRELESS COMMUNICATION TERMINAL

In one aspect, a computer system configured to use a connected vehicleas an electronic payment device may be provided. The computer system mayinclude one or more merchant communication terminal-mounted processors,sensors, biometric sensors and/or transceivers configured to: (1)identify an autonomous or other vehicle (such as via license platescan); (2) detect a triggering event; (3) generate an electronic messageasking the driver or passenger of the vehicle if they would like toauthorize payment from a virtual account for nearby goods or services,the virtual account associated with, or linked with, the driver orpassenger, and/or the autonomous or other vehicle, and transmitting theelectronic message via wireless communication or data transmission overa radio link to the vehicle; (4) receive via wireless communication ordata transmission over the radio link a response an input from thedriver or passenger authorizing payment for the goods or services, suchas from a vehicle account or a virtual account associated with thedriver or passenger; (5) securely transfer funds from the virtualaccount to a merchant's virtual account or merchant communicationterminal (such as via wireless communication or data transmission over ashort-range wireless communication channel); and/or (6) transmit anorder confirmation (such as via wireless communication or datatransmission over a short-range wireless communication channel), and/ormove the goods or services into or in proximity of the vehicle tofacilitate the vehicle acting as an payment device.

In another aspect, a smart wireless communication terminal forfacilitating using a connected vehicle as a payment device may beprovided. The smart wireless communication terminal may be associatedwith a merchant that provides goods or services, and may include one ormore processors and/or transceivers configured to: (1) detect that aconnected vehicle is within direct wireless communication or datatransmission range, the connected vehicle being equipped with one ormore processors or transceivers and configured for short-range wirelesscommunication over a radio link; (2) establish a secure or encryptedwireless connection over a secure short-range communication network withthe connected vehicle; (3) electronically verify an identification of anindividual riding within the connected vehicle; (4) electronicallyverify a virtual financial account associated with the individual ridingwithin the connected vehicle; (5) accept a virtual order for goods orservices from the connected vehicle input from the individual; and/or(6) automatically deliver the goods or services orders (e.g., food orgas) into or to the vicinity of the connected vehicle, or generate anotification that payment for the goods or services has beenaccepted/received, to facilitate using the vehicle as a payment deviceand to complete commercial transactions.

In yet another aspect, a smart wireless communication terminal forfacilitating using a vehicle as a payment device may be provided. Thesmart wireless communication terminal may be associated with a merchantthat provides goods or services. The smart wireless communicationterminal may include one or more processors and/or transceiversconfigured to: (1) detect that a connected vehicle is within directwireless communication or data transmission range, the connected vehiclebeing equipped with one or more processors or transceivers andconfigured for short-range wireless communication over a radio link; (2)establish a secure or encrypted wireless connection over a secureshort-range communication network with the connected vehicle; (3)electronically verify an identification of the connected vehicle, suchas via the secure or encrypted wireless communication or via a licenseplat scan or image analysis of digital images of the license plate; (4)electronically verify a virtual financial account associated with anindividual riding within the connected vehicle, or with the connectedvehicle itself; (5) accept a virtual order for goods or services fromthe connected vehicle input from the individual; and/or (6)automatically deliver the goods or services orders (e.g., food or gas)into or to the vicinity of the connected vehicle, or generate anotification that payment for the goods or services has beenaccepted/received, to facilitate using the vehicle as a payment deviceand to complete commercial transactions.

The foregoing smart merchant or wireless communication terminals may befurther configured to automatically pump or push gas into an open gastank of the connected vehicle; to automatically detect that theconnected vehicle is in position to receive gas, or to receive anautomated, mechanical, or robotic arm associated with a smart nozzle orpump that facilitates filling the gas tank of the connected vehicle; tosecurely accept payment from the virtual account for the goods orservices; and/or to sense a location of the connected vehicle withrespect to the smart terminal. The terminal may be further configured tosense a location of the gas tank opening of the connected vehicle withrespect to the smart terminal, and/or whether the gas tank opening isopen (such as whether a smart gas tank cover has automatically opened toallowed a robotic arm to move a nozzle into the opening and allowpassage of gasoline into the connected vehicle's gas tank). Additionallyor alternatively, the smart wireless communication terminal may befurther configured to automatically extend the robotic arm and/or nozzleinto a position that allows the robotic arm, nozzle, and/or smartterminal to fill the gas tank of the connected vehicle.

In another aspect, a smart communication terminal for facilitating usinga vehicle as a payment device may be provided. The smart communicationterminal may be associated with a merchant that provides goods orservices, and may include (1) means for detecting that a connectedvehicle is within direct wireless communication or data transmissionrange, the connected vehicle being equipped with one or more processorsor transceivers and configured for wireless communication over one ormore radio links; (2) means for establishing a secure or encryptedwireless connection over a secure communication network with theconnected vehicle; (3) means for electronically verifying anidentification of an individual riding within the connected vehicle; (4)means for electronically verifying a virtual account associated with theindividual riding within the connected vehicle; (5) means for acceptinga virtual order for goods or services from the connected vehicle inputfrom the individual; and/or (7) means for automatically delivering thegoods or services orders (e.g., food or gas) into, or to the vicinityof, the connected vehicle to facilitate using the vehicle as a paymentdevice and to complete commercial transactions.

The smart communication terminal may further include (8) means forautomatically pumping or pushing gas into an open gas tank of theconnected vehicle; (9) means for automatically detecting that theconnected vehicle is in position to receive gas, or to receive anautomated, mechanical, or robotic arm associated with a smart nozzlethat facilitates filling the gas tank of the connected vehicle; (10)means for securely accepting payment from the virtual account for thegoods or services; (11) means for sensing location of the connectedvehicle with respect to the smart terminal; (12) means for sensinglocation of the gas tank opening of the connected vehicle with respectto the smart terminal, and/or whether the gas tank opening is open (suchas whether a smart gas tank cover has automatically opened to allowed arobotic arm to move a nozzle into the opening and allow passage ofgasoline into the connected vehicle's gas tank); and/or (13) means forautomatically extending the robotic arm and/or nozzle into a positionthat allows the robotic arm, nozzle, and/or smart terminal to fill thegas tank of the connected vehicle. The smart communication terminal mayinclude additional, less, or alternate functionality, including thatdiscussed elsewhere herein.

The (1) means for detecting that a connected vehicle is within directwireless communication or data transmission range may include theconnected vehicle being equipped with one or more processors ortransceivers and configured for wireless communication over one or moreradio links. The one or more processors and/or transceivers may be ableto detect a low energy transmitter (such as a Bluetooth transmitter orWi-Fi transmitter) located on the connected vehicle, or a low energyshort-range communication signal or channel. Additionally oralternatively, the one or more processors may compare a vehicle'scurrent GPS location that is received via wireless communication with astored GPS location of the merchant communication terminal (such as asmart gas pump) to determine that short-range and/or low energy wirelesscommunication from the merchant communication terminal to the connectedvehicle is possible because they are within a few feet of each other(assuming both are in working condition).

The (2) means for establishing a secure or encrypted wireless connectionover a secure communication network with the connected vehicle mayinclude the one or more processors and/or transceivers of the merchantcommunication terminal and/or vehicle transmitting one or moreencryption keys or tokens to each other for unlocking a subsequenttransmission, or otherwise transmitting an encrypted wirelesscommunication or data transmission from the merchant communicationterminal.

The (3) means for electronically verifying an identification of anindividual riding within the connected vehicle may include the merchantcommunication terminal receiving an identification of the passenger ordriver (and/or vehicle) from the vehicle transmitter after the vehiclecontroller verifies identification of the passenger or driver, such asvia one or more biometric sensors. Additionally or alternatively, thebiometric sensor data may be transmitted to the merchant communicationterminal for verification of driver or passenger identity, such as viacomparison with stored driver or passenger biometric data (stored withthe driver's or passenger's permission or affirmative consent).

The (4) means for electronically verifying a virtual account associatedwith the individual riding within the connected vehicle may include oneor more processors and/or transceivers of the merchant communicationterminal verifying with a 3^(rd) party server, such as a remote serverassociated with a financial institution, that the virtual account existsand is associated with the individual and/or vehicle identified.

The (5) means for accepting a virtual order for goods or services fromthe connected vehicle input from the individual may include the one ormore processors and/or transceivers associated with the merchantcommunication terminal receiving the virtual order from the connectedvehicle controller/transceiver via the short-range, low energy wirelesscommunication channel.

The (7) means for automatically delivering the goods or services orders(e.g., food or gas) into or to the vicinity of the connected vehicle mayinclude automatically directing the vehicle, such as an autonomousvehicle, to position itself to a drive-up window (for food, snacks,coffee, prescription drugs, dry cleaning, etc.), or to a smart gas pump.The vehicle may be directed using GPS location data or coordinates ofthe vehicle, the drive-up window or smart gas pump, and a known ordetermined layout of a merchant parking lot.

The (8) means for automatically pumping or pushing gas into an open gastank of the connected vehicle may include a smart gas pump configuredwith a robotic or mechanic arm that automatically extends from the smartgas pump toward the vehicle to move a nozzle into an open gas tank ofthe vehicle, and to allow the initiating of pumping gasoline into thevehicle. The nozzle may be a dumb or smart nozzle, and/or the gas tankmay include a smart gas tank cover that opens and/or shuts under thedirect of commands received via wired or wireless communication from theconnected vehicle controller or via wireless communication from amerchant communication terminal or a smart gas pump configured forwireless communication.

The (9) means for automatically detecting that the connected vehicle isin position to receive gas, or to receive an automated, mechanical, orrobotic arm associated with a smart (or other) nozzle that facilitatesfilling the gas tank of the connected vehicle may include the smartcommunication terminal or smart gas pump including one or more sensors,cameras, infrared devices, radar units, or lights that measure thedistance to the vehicle and/or the height of the gas tank of the vehicle(or determines a make/model of the vehicle, and then looks height of thegas tank from a data structure). The one or more sensors, cameras,infrared devices, radar units or lights may be configured to detect thegas tank cover is open or that a smart gas tank cover has opened.Alternatively, the vehicle may be equipped with a smart gas tank coverthat wirelessly communicates with the vehicle controller and/or themerchant communication terminal indicating that the smart gas tank coverhas opened or is open (such as by sliding, moving, or rotating a coveror flap).

The (10) means for securely accepting payment from the virtual accountfor the goods or services may include the one or more processors beingable to use (or receive) one or more tokens or encryption keys tosecuring access the financial account of the users or the vehicle.

The (11) means for sensing location of the connected vehicle withrespect to the smart merchant communication terminal may include one ormore sensors, radar units, cameras, light sensors unit, 3D image unitsmounted on the smart merchant terminal, and/or the one or moreprocessors and/or transceivers mounted on the smart merchant terminalbeing in wireless communication with the vehicle, and/or configured torequest and receive the vehicle's current GPS location.

The (12) means for sensing location of the gas tank opening of theconnected vehicle with respect to the smart terminal, and/or whether thegas tank opening is open (such as whether a smart gas tank cover hasautomatically opened to allowed a robotic arm to move a nozzle into theopening and allow passage of gasoline into the connected vehicle's gastank) may include one or more sensors, cameras, radar units, lightreflection measuring units, 3D imaging units, or other sensorsconfigured to measure the distance from the smart merchant terminal (orsmart gas pump) to the vehicle, and/or to determine or identify theheight of the gas tank opening, and/or whether the gas tank is open(such as a smart gas tank cover being opened automatically via controlsignal sent from the vehicle (or vehicle controller) or a wirelesscontrol signal sent from the smart merchant communication terminal (orgas pump).

The (13) means for automatically extending the robotic arm and/or nozzleinto a position that allows the robotic arm, nozzle, and/or smartterminal to fill the gas tank of the connected vehicle may include arobotic or mechanical arm that physical expands or extends horizontallyfrom the smart terminal toward the gas tank of the connected vehicleuntil the nozzle is positioned within the open gas tank opening to allowthe smart terminal to commence pumping gas and to fill up the gas tank.The pumping of gas may be commenced once the smart terminal or vehicleverify that the nozzle is positioned within the opening of the gas tank,such as via one or more contact sensors, a sensor array, or via digitalimage analysis. The smart terminals mentioned herein may includeadditional, less, or alternate functionality, including that discussedelsewhere herein.

In another aspect, a computer-implemented method for using apoint-of-sale terminal to accept vehicle payments may be provided. Themethod may include: (1) receiving (via one or more processors (and/orassociated transceivers) in a POS terminal) an indication that a vehiclefor providing electronic payments is within a predetermined range of thePOS terminal; (2) transmitting (via the one or more processors and/orassociated transceivers, and/or a wired or wireless communication and/ordata transmission over a radio link or wireless communication channel)an electronic message including an indication of goods or services thatcan be purchased at the POS terminal and a user control for transmittinga request to order the goods or services to the POS terminal, whereinthe electronic message is displayed on a head unit of the vehicle; inresponse to receiving an indication from the vehicle that the vehicle ora user within the vehicle wants to initiate a payment process; and/or(3) receiving (via the one or more processors and/or associatedtransceivers, and/or a wired or wireless communication and/or datatransmission from an electronic device proximately attached to anexterior of the vehicle over a radio link or wireless communicationchannel) information indicative of a financial account for makingpayments. The method may further include: (4) providing (via the one ormore processors) the goods or services to the vehicle; (5) transmitting(via the one or more processors and/or associated transceivers, and/or awired or wireless communication and/or data transmission over a radiolink or wireless communication channel) the information indicative ofthe financial account to an issuing bank server for processing paymentfor the goods or services; and/or when the payment is accepted asindicated by the issuing bank server, (6) transmitting (via the one ormore processors and/or associated transceivers, and/or a wired orwireless communication and/or data transmission over a radio link orwireless communication channel to the vehicle) an electronic receiptindicative of the payment to facilitate using the vehicle as a paymentdevice.

The foregoing methods may include additional, less, or alternateactions, including those discussed elsewhere herein. The foregoingmethods may be implemented via one or more local or remote processors,sensors, and/or transceivers, and/or via computer-executableinstructions stored on non-transitory computer-readable medium or media.

For instance, providing the goods or services to the vehicle may includeproviding at least one of: gasoline, food, dry cleaning, coffee,groceries, pharmaceuticals, or vehicle maintenance to the vehicle. Thegoods or services may be gasoline and the method may further include:(1) detecting (via the one or more processors) that a gas tank of thevehicle is open and a position of a gas tank opening for the vehicle;(2) directing (via the one or more processors) a robotic arm included ina smart gas pump communicatively coupled to the POS terminal to insert anozzle attached to the robotic arm into the gas tank opening accordingto the position of the gas tank opening; (3) automatically providing(via the one or more processors) gasoline to the vehicle by causing asmart valve within the smart gas pump to open; (4) detecting (via theone or more processors) that the gas tank of the vehicle is full; and/or(6) closing (via the one or more processors) the smart valve to stopproviding gasoline to the vehicle. The method may further include:detecting (via the one or more processors) that the gas tank opening isfurther than a predetermined maximum distance away from the POS terminalaccording to the position of the gas tank opening; and/or transmitting(via the one or more processors and/or associated transceivers, and/or awired or wireless communication and/or data transmission over a radiolink or wireless communication channel to the vehicle) a request thatthe vehicle be moved to a particular location which is less than thepredetermined maximum distance from the POS terminal.

Additionally, the POS terminal may direct the robotic arm to insert thenozzle into the gas tank opening when the position of the gas tankopening is less than a predetermined maximum distance away from the POSterminal. The electronic message may be transmitted via the veryshort-range communication link to the electronic device proximatelyattached to the exterior of the vehicle, and the electronic device maytransmit the electronic message, via a short-range communication link,to the head unit of the vehicle for display.

Moreover, the method may also include establishing (via the one or moreprocessors) the very short-range communication link between the POSterminal and the electronic device proximately attached to the exteriorof the vehicle for receiving electronic payments when the vehicle iswithin the predetermined range of the POS terminal.

In yet another aspect, a merchant communication terminal forfacilitating using a vehicle as a payment device may be provided. Themerchant communication terminal may include one or more processors(and/or associated transceivers) in a merchant communication terminalassociated with a merchant, and/or a non-transitory computer-readablememory coupled to the one or more processors and storing machinereadable instructions, that when executed by the one or more processors,may cause the merchant communication terminal to perform various tasks.For example, the instructions may cause the system to: (1) detect atriggering event indicating that a vehicle is within a predeterminedrange for communicating with the merchant communication terminal; (2)establish a short-range communication link between the merchantcommunication terminal and the vehicle; (3) electronically verifyidentification information indicative of the vehicle or a user withinthe vehicle; (4) electronically verify a virtual account associated withthe vehicle or the user within the vehicle; (5) accept a virtual orderfor goods or services provided by the merchant; and/or (6) automaticallyprovide the goods or services to the vehicle to facilitate using thevehicle as a payment device. The merchant communication terminal mayinclude additional, fewer, or alternate components and/or functionality,including that discussed elsewhere herein.

For instance, the goods or services provided by the merchant may begasoline and the merchant communication terminal may be communicativelycoupled to a smart gas pump having a robotic arm for maneuvering anozzle to automatically pump gas into a gas tank opening of the vehicle.Identification information indicative of the vehicle or a user withinthe vehicle may include a PIN number, a facial scan, a finger printscan, a retina scan, a voice scan, an authenticated key fob, mobiledevice identification information, sensor data from weight or pressuresensors within the vehicle which detect a weight of a driver orpassenger within the vehicle, or a license plate number for the vehicle.

Additionally, to detect a triggering event indicating that a vehicle iswithin a predetermined range for communicating with the merchantcommunication terminal, the instructions may cause the merchantcommunication terminal to at least one of: detect that the vehicle iswithin Wi-Fi, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), or Bluetoothcommunication range of the merchant communication terminal by receivinga Wi-Fi, RFID, or Bluetooth signal from the vehicle; and/or detect thatthe vehicle is within a predetermined distance of the merchantcommunication terminal by capturing images, via a camera communicativelycoupled to the merchant communication terminal, of an area surroundingthe merchant communication terminal, and/or identifying, using digitalimage analysis techniques, the vehicle within at least one of the imagesand a position of the vehicle relative to the merchant communicationterminal.

Moreover, the instructions may further cause the merchant communicationterminal to: (1) generate an electronic message requesting a user toauthorize payment for the goods or services from the virtual accountassociated with the vehicle or the user; (2) transmit, via theshort-range communication link, the electronic message to the vehicle;(3) receive, via the short-range communication link, input from the userauthorizing payment from the goods or services from the virtual account;(4) detect that a gas tank of the vehicle is open and a location of thegas tank opening for the vehicle with respect to the merchantcommunication terminal; (5) direct the robotic arm included in the smartgas pump to insert the nozzle into the gas tank opening according to theposition of the gas tank opening; (6) automatically provide gasoline tothe vehicle; (7) accept payment from the virtual account for the goodsor services; and/or (8) transmit, via the short-range communicationlink, an electronic receipt for the payment of the goods or services.

VII. EXEMPLARY SMART GAS PUMP

FIG. 6 depicts an exemplary system that is configured to facilitateusing a connected vehicle as a payment device 600. A smart gas pump 602may include a communication terminal 614 that includes one or moreprocessors and/or transceivers, similar to the POS terminal 20, as shownin FIG. 1 and described above. The communication terminal 614 may beconfigured for short-range, very short-range, and/or low energy wirelesscommunication or data transmission (such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, RFID,NFC). The communication terminal 614 may be in wireless communicationwith a vehicle infotainment, vehicle controller, or vehicle navigationsystem 616 mounted within the vehicle 610, which may be a smart vehicleor an autonomous vehicle in some embodiments. The communication terminal614 associated with the merchant may communicate with the vehicle 610over a short-range, very short-range, and/or low energy radio frequencylink or channel 618.

The smart gas pump 602 may include one or more sensors (such as cameras,3D imaging devices, radar units, light emitting devices, etc.), such aswithin a sensor array 609. The sensor array 609 may be configured todetect the location of the vehicle, type of vehicle (such as byemploying object recognition, optical character recognition, or patternrecognition techniques on digital images of the vehicle to determinemake, model, year, and/or license plate number), and/or a locationand/or height of the gas tank of the vehicle. The sensor array 609 mayalso be able to detect whether a gas tank opening 612 of the vehicle 610is open or otherwise not covered. Additionally or alternatively, thevehicle 610 may have sensors that indicate that the gas tank is open orotherwise ready to accept a nozzle, and may communicate that fact withthe smart gas pump 602 or communication terminal 614.

Additionally or alternatively, the vehicle 610 may be equipped with asmart gas tank cap or cover that is equipped with a transceiver thatcommunicates its status (open or closed) to the smart gas pump 602 orcommunication terminal 614. In some embodiments, the smart gas pump 602or communication terminal 614 may send a control signal for a smart gastank cover to open once the sensor array 609 determines that the vehicle610 is positioned properly to receive gas from the smart gas pump.

The smart gas pump 602 may include a robotic or mechanical arm 604 thatis equipped with a smart or other nozzle 608, and/or smart valve orhandle 606. The smart nozzle 608 may include a sensor that detectsand/or indicates whether the nozzle 608 is positioned correctly within agas tank opening to pump or otherwise allow gasoline to move into avehicle gas tank. The smart valve or handle 606 may open and/or allowgasoline to move into the vehicle gas tank after being directed to openby the communication terminal 614 and/or the smart nozzle 608.

The communication terminal 614 may be in communication with, and/or sendcontrol signals to the smart nozzle 608, smart valve 606, and/or roboticor mechanical arm 604. For instance, once the sensor array 609determines that the vehicle 610 is parked and in a position to receivegasoline (and the gas tank is open or uncovered), that information maybe received by the communication terminal 614. After which, thecommunication terminal 614 may direct the robotic or mechanical arm 604to extend from the smart gas pump 602 at a distance and/or heightdetermined from the sensor array 609 that is appropriate for thevehicle's make/model. Once the arm 604 is extended and the smart nozzle608 sensor or other sensor indicates that the smart nozzle 608 ispositioned within the gas tank opening, the communication terminal 614may direct the smart valve 606 to open to allow gasoline to flow intothe gas tank—until another sensor determines that the gas tank isapproximately or almost full.

For instance, FIG. 7 shows the robotic or mechanical arm 704 in anextended position. The smart gas pump 702 may include one or moreprocessors or a communication terminal 716 configured for wired and/orwireless communication. The smart gas pump 702 may include thefore-mentioned or another sensor array 718. The arm 704 may include asmart or dumb nozzle 708, and a means for initiating/stopping the flowof gasoline into the vehicle 710, such as a smart valve or handle 706.The arm 704 may be extended after the sensor array 718 determines thatthe gas tank opening 712 of the vehicle 710 is uncovered and the vehicleis within distance. For instance, a smart gas tank cover 714 may bedirected to swing open by the vehicle 710 controller, or by the smartgas pump 702 communication terminal 716.

VIII. EXEMPLARY MERCHANT SMART COMMUNICATION TERMINAL FLOW

FIG. 8 depicts an exemplary computer-implemented method of conductingcommercial transactions with an autonomous vehicle configured forvehicle pay via merchant terminals 800. The method 800 may include (1)detecting or determining a license plate number of an autonomous vehicle802. For instance, when an autonomous vehicle pulls up to a gas stationpump or drive-thru window of pharmacy or restaurant, the merchant may beequipped with one or more cameras that acquire digital images of anautonomous vehicle. Object recognition or optical character recognitiontechniques may be performed on the digital images to determine thelicense plate number of the autonomous vehicle.

The method 800 may include (2) verifying that the autonomous vehicle isnot reported stolen 804. For instance, from the digital images, thelicense plate and make/model information may be determined by a merchantterminal. The merchant terminal may access a 3^(rd) party databaseassociated with law enforcement to verify that the autonomous vehiclehas not been reported stolen.

The method 800 may include (3) detecting a trigger event at the merchantterminal 806. Example events may include the merchant terminal detecting(i) that the autonomous vehicle is in short-range or low-energy wirelesscommunication range, and/or (ii) that the autonomous vehicle has sent anelectronic request for goods/services via wireless communication or datatransmission. In response, the merchant terminal may transmit productand price information to the autonomous vehicle (such as to theinfotainment system), such as an online menu for food/drinks.

The method 800 may include (4) receiving vehicle and/or passengerfinancial account information from the autonomous vehicle at themerchant terminal 808. For instance, the vehicle or passenger may havean account with a merchant that they prefer or use regularly, such as anaccount with a preferred or normal pharmacy, gas station, or restaurantchain. Additionally or alternatively, the merchant terminal maydetermine vehicle or passenger account information from the licenseplate determined via image analysis. The merchant terminal may alsoverify that a prescription has been prescribed by a physician orhospital for the passenger.

The method 800 may include, under the direction and/or control of themerchant terminal (and/or one or more autonomous vehicle processors),(5) determining a location of a gas tank opening of the autonomousvehicle via a sensor array associated with the merchant terminal 810;(6) automatically receiving or delivering the goods or services, and/ordirect or move the autonomous vehicle to receive the goods or servicesordered, such as automatically move the autonomous vehicle through adrive-thru or up to a gas pump 812; and/or (7) receive e-payment and/ortransmit an e-receipt to the autonomous vehicle 814, such as discussedelsewhere herein.

In one aspect, a computer-implemented method of using a connectedvehicle as an electronic payment device may be provided. The method mayinclude (1) identifying or determining, via one or more (merchant smartcommunication terminal) processors and/or sensors, an identification ofa connected autonomous vehicle (such as via object recognition performedon license plate digital images of the vehicle) and/or make and modelinformation; (2) verifying, via the one or more processors and/ortransceivers, that the connected autonomous vehicle has not beenreported stolen (such as by sending the license plate number andmake/model information to a 3^(rd) party server via wirelesscommunication and/or data transmission over one or more radio links);(3) detecting, via the one or more processors and/or transceivers, atriggering event (such as the connected autonomous vehicle being withinshort-range communication range with a merchant communication terminal,and/or receiving an electronic request for goods and services from theautonomous vehicle via wireless communication or data transmission); (4)receiving, via the one or more processors (and/or transceivers), vehicleand/or passenger financial virtual account information (such as viawireless communication or data transmission from the autonomous vehicleusing a short-range, low-energy communication channel) or otherwisedetermining a virtual account from the license plate number; (5)accepting, via the one or more processors, an input from the driver orpassenger authorizing payment for the goods or services (such as viawireless communication or data transmission from the autonomous vehicleusing a short-range, low-energy communication channel); (6) securely,via the one or more processors and/or transceivers, transferring fundsfrom the virtual account to a merchant's virtual account (such as viawireless communication with the merchant communication terminal over ashort-range communication channel); and/or (7) moving, via the one ormore processors, the goods or services into proximity of the autonomousvehicle; (8) directing, via the one or more processors, the autonomousvehicle into position to receive the goods or services (such as viawireless communication or data transmission sent to the autonomousvehicle using a short-range, low-energy communication channel); (9)confirming, via the one or more processors, delivery of the goods orservices (such as via digital image analysis or machine learningtechniques performed on images taken of the autonomous vehicle); and/or(10) transmitting a notification that electronic payment for the goodsor services (such as via wireless communication or data transmissionsent to the autonomous vehicle using the short-range, low-energycommunication channel) has been accepted to facilitate the autonomousvehicle acting as an payment device for a commercial transaction.

The method may include detecting, via the one or more processors and/orsensors, a height and distance to the autonomous vehicle gas tankopening (for a gas station merchant terminal); determining, via the oneor more processors, and/or sensors, that the gas tank is open orotherwise uncovered; and/or directing, via the one or more processors,sensors, and/or transceivers, the automatic filling of the autonomousvehicle gas tank with gasoline once it is verified that the gas tank isuncovered, and the height and/or distance to the gas tank opening.

The method may include detecting, verifying, or determining, via the oneor more processors and/or transceivers, that a passenger within theautonomous vehicle has a prescription that needs to be filled and/ordelivered to the passenger (for a pharmacy merchant terminal). Theforegoing methods may include additional, less, or alternate actions,including those discussed elsewhere herein.

In another aspect, a computer system or merchant terminal configured touse a connected vehicle as an electronic payment device may be provided.The computer system or merchant terminal may include one or moreprocessors, sensors, cameras, and/or transceivers configured to: (1)identify or determine an identification of a connected autonomousvehicle (such as via object recognition performed on license platedigital images of the vehicle) and/or make and model information; (2)verify that the connected autonomous vehicle has not been reportedstolen (such as by sending the license plate number and make/modelinformation to a 3^(rd) party server via wireless communication and/ordata transmission over one or more radio links); (3) detect a triggeringevent (such as the connected autonomous vehicle being within short-rangeand/or low energy communication range with a merchant communicationterminal, and/or receiving an electronic request for goods and servicesfrom the autonomous vehicle via wireless communication or datatransmission); (4) receive vehicle and/or passenger financial virtualaccount information (such as via wireless communication or datatransmission from the autonomous vehicle using a short-range, low-energycommunication channel) or otherwise determining a virtual account fromthe license plate number; (5) accept an input from the driver orpassenger authorizing payment for the goods or services (such as viawireless communication or data transmission from the autonomous vehicleusing a short-range and/or low-energy communication channel); (6)securely transfer funds from the virtual account to a merchant's virtualaccount (such as via wireless communication with the merchantcommunication terminal over a short-range communication channel); (7)move the goods or services into proximity of the autonomous vehicle; (8)direct the autonomous vehicle into position to receive the goods orservices (such as via wireless communication or data transmission sentto the autonomous vehicle using the short-range, low-energycommunication channel); (9) confirm delivery of the goods or services(such as via digital image analysis or machine learning techniquesperformed on images taken of the autonomous vehicle); and/or (10)transmit a notification that electronic payment for the goods orservices (such as via wireless communication or data transmission sentto the autonomous vehicle using the short-range, low-energycommunication channel) has been accepted to facilitate the autonomousvehicle acting as an payment device for a commercial transaction.

The one or more processors, sensors, cameras, and/or transceivers may beconfigured to: detect a height and distance to the autonomous vehiclegas tank opening (for a gas station merchant terminal); determine thatthe gas tank is open or otherwise uncovered; and/or direct the automaticfilling of the autonomous vehicle gas tank with gasoline once it isverified that the gas tank is uncovered, and/or the height and/ordistance to the gas tank opening. The one or more processors, sensors,cameras, and/or transceivers may be configured to: detect, verify, ordetermine that a passenger within the autonomous vehicle has aprescription that needs to be filled and/or delivered to the passenger(for a pharmacy merchant terminal).

The computer-implemented methods discussed herein may includeadditional, less, or alternate actions, including those discussedelsewhere herein. The methods may be implemented via one or more localor remote processors, transceivers, and/or sensors (such as processors,transceivers, and/or sensors mounted on vehicles or mobile devices, orassociated with smart infrastructure or remote servers), and/or viacomputer-executable instructions stored on non-transitorycomputer-readable media or medium.

Additionally, the computer systems discussed herein may includeadditional, less, or alternate functionality, including that discussedelsewhere herein. The computer systems discussed herein may include orbe implemented via computer-executable instructions stored onnon-transitory computer-readable media or medium.

In yet another aspect, a merchant communication terminal for using anautonomous vehicle as an electronic payment device may be provided. Themerchant communication terminal may include one or more processors(and/or associated transceivers) in a merchant communication terminalassociated with a merchant, and/or a non-transitory computer-readablememory coupled to the one or more processors and storing machinereadable instructions, that when executed by the one or more processors,may cause the merchant communication terminal to perform various tasks.For example, the instructions may cause the system to: (1) obtainidentification information for an autonomous vehicle; (2) verify thatthe autonomous vehicle has not been reported stolen by communicating theidentification information to a server for retrieving stolen vehiclerecords; (3) detect a triggering event indicating that the autonomousvehicle is within a predetermined range for communicating with themerchant communication terminal; and/or (4) receive, via a short-rangecommunication link, virtual account information for a virtual accountassociated with the vehicle. The instructions may further cause thesystem to: (5) receive and accept, via the short-range communicationlink, an input from the vehicle authorizing payment for goods andservices provided by the merchant; (6) securely receive, via theshort-range communication link, funds from the virtual account at avirtual account for the merchant; and/or (7) transmit, via theshort-range communication link, a notification that electronic paymentfor the goods or services has been accepted to facilitate the autonomousvehicle acting as a payment device. The merchant communication terminalmay include additional, fewer, or alternate components and/orfunctionality, including that discussed elsewhere herein.

For instance, the goods or services may be gasoline, the merchantcommunication terminal may be communicatively coupled to a smart gaspump having a robotic arm for maneuvering a nozzle to automatically pumpgas into a gas tank opening of the vehicle, and the instructions maycause the merchant communication terminal to: (1) determine that a gastank of the autonomous vehicle is open or uncovered; (2) determine aheight of the gas tank opening of the autonomous vehicle and a distancefrom the merchant communication terminal to the gas tank opening; and/or(3) direct the robotic arm included in the smart gas pump to insert thenozzle into the gas tank opening for automatic filling of the gas tank.Furthermore, the goods or services may be prescriptions and theinstructions may cause the merchant communication terminal to: determinethat a passenger within the autonomous vehicle has a prescription thatneeds to be filled or delivered to the passenger.

Additionally, the instructions may further cause the merchantcommunication terminal to transfer the goods or services to theautonomous vehicle by: (1) directing the autonomous vehicle to aparticular location for receiving the goods or services; and/or (2)confirming delivery of the goods or services by obtaining an indicationthat the autonomous vehicle received the goods or services.

Moreover, to obtain an indication that the autonomous vehicle receivedthe goods or services, the instructions may cause the merchantcommunication terminal to at least one of: (1) receive, via theshort-range communication link, an electronic message from theautonomous vehicle indicating that the goods or services have beenreceived; and/or (2) capture, via a camera communicatively coupled tothe merchant terminal, images of the autonomous vehicle and analyze theimages to determine that the goods or services were received.

IX. ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

Although the following text sets forth a detailed description ofnumerous different embodiments, it should be understood that the legalscope of the description is defined by the words of the claims set forthat the end of this patent and equivalents. The detailed description isto be construed as exemplary only and does not describe every possibleembodiment since describing every possible embodiment would beimpractical. Numerous alternative embodiments may be implemented, usingeither current technology or technology developed after the filing dateof this patent, which would still fall within the scope of the claims.

It should also be understood that, unless a term is expressly defined inthis patent using the sentence “As used herein, the term ‘______’ ishereby defined to mean . . . ” or a similar sentence, there is no intentto limit the meaning of that term, either expressly or by implication,beyond its plain or ordinary meaning, and such term should not beinterpreted to be limited in scope based upon any statement made in anysection of this patent (other than the language of the claims). To theextent that any term recited in the claims at the end of this patent isreferred to in this patent in a manner consistent with a single meaning,that is done for sake of clarity only so as to not confuse the reader,and it is not intended that such claim term be limited, by implicationor otherwise, to that single meaning. The patent claims at the end ofthis patent application are not intended to be construed under 35 U.S.C.§ 112(f) unless traditional means-plus-function language is expresslyrecited, such as “means for” or “step for” language being explicitlyrecited in the claim(s).

Accordingly, the term “vehicle” may refer to any of a number ofmotorized transportation devices. A vehicle may be a car, truck, bus,train, boat, plane, motorcycle, snowmobile, other personal transportdevices, etc.

As used herein, the terms “financial card,” “financial account,” and“virtual account” may be used to refer to any device or identifier thatenables the cardholder to make a payment via an electronic transfer offunds. For example, a financial card, financial account, or virtualaccount may include a credit card, a debit card, a gift card, a chargecard, a stored-value card, a rewards card, a bank account, a rewardsaccount, a pre-paid toll account, etc.

The term “point-of-sale (POS) terminal” as used herein may refer to anelectronic device used to process financial card payments at retaillocations. For example, a POS terminal may include a computer, a cashregister and/or other equipment or software for reading financial data,recording transactions, and/or communicating with a credit card networkto transfer funds.

As used herein, the term “establishment” may be used to refer to amerchant and/or retail location for selling goods or services tocustomers. For example, an establishment may include a restaurant, a gasstation, a car wash, a clothing store, a department store, a furniturestore, a grocery store, a convenience store, a dry cleaning store, apharmacy, a vehicle repair shop, etc.

The following additional considerations apply to the foregoingdiscussion. Throughout this specification, plural instances mayimplement components, operations, or structures described as a singleinstance. Although individual operations of one or more methods areillustrated and described as separate operations, one or more of theindividual operations may be performed concurrently, and nothingrequires that the operations be performed in the order illustrated.Structures and functionality presented as separate components in exampleconfigurations may be implemented as a combined structure or component.Similarly, structures and functionality presented as a single componentmay be implemented as separate components. These and other variations,modifications, additions, and improvements fall within the scope of thesubject matter herein.

Additionally, certain embodiments are described herein as includinglogic or a number of routines, subroutines, applications, orinstructions. These may constitute either software (e.g., code embodiedon a machine-readable medium or in a transmission signal) or hardware.In hardware, the routines, etc., are tangible units capable ofperforming certain operations and may be configured or arranged in acertain manner. In example embodiments, one or more computer systems(e.g., a standalone, client or server computer system) or one or morehardware modules of a computer system (e.g., a processor or a group ofprocessors) may be configured by software (e.g., an application orapplication portion) as a hardware module that operates to performcertain operations as described herein.

In various embodiments, a hardware module may be implementedmechanically or electronically. For example, a hardware module maycomprise dedicated circuitry or logic that is permanently configured(e.g., as a special-purpose processor, such as a field programmable gatearray (FPGA) or an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)) toperform certain operations. A hardware module may also compriseprogrammable logic or circuitry (e.g., as encompassed within ageneral-purpose processor or other programmable processor) that istemporarily configured by software to perform certain operations. Itwill be appreciated that the decision to implement a hardware modulemechanically, in dedicated and permanently configured circuitry, or intemporarily configured circuitry (e.g., configured by software) may bedriven by cost and time considerations.

Accordingly, the term “hardware module” should be understood toencompass a tangible entity, be that an entity that is physicallyconstructed, permanently configured (e.g., hardwired), or temporarilyconfigured (e.g., programmed) to operate in a certain manner or toperform certain operations described herein. Considering embodiments inwhich hardware modules are temporarily configured (e.g., programmed),each of the hardware modules need not be configured or instantiated atany one instance in time. For example, where the hardware modulescomprise a general-purpose processor configured using software, thegeneral-purpose processor may be configured as respective differenthardware modules at different times. Software may accordingly configurea processor, for example, to constitute a particular hardware module atone instance of time and to constitute a different hardware module at adifferent instance of time.

Hardware modules may provide information to, and receive informationfrom, other hardware modules. Accordingly, the described hardwaremodules may be regarded as being communicatively coupled. Where multipleof such hardware modules exist contemporaneously, communications may beachieved through signal transmission (e.g., over appropriate circuitsand buses) that connect the hardware modules. In embodiments in whichmultiple hardware modules are configured or instantiated at differenttimes, communications between such hardware modules may be achieved, forexample, through the storage and retrieval of information in memorystructures to which the multiple hardware modules have access. Forexample, one hardware module may perform an operation and store theoutput of that operation in a memory device to which it iscommunicatively coupled. A further hardware module may then, at a latertime, access the memory device to retrieve and process the storedoutput. Hardware modules may also initiate communications with input oroutput devices, and may operate on a resource (e.g., a collection ofinformation).

The various operations of example methods described herein may beperformed, at least partially, by one or more processors that aretemporarily configured (e.g., by software) or permanently configured toperform the relevant operations. Whether temporarily or permanentlyconfigured, such processors may constitute processor-implemented modulesthat operate to perform one or more operations or functions. The modulesreferred to herein may, in some example embodiments, compriseprocessor-implemented modules.

Similarly, the methods or routines described herein may be at leastpartially processor-implemented. For example, at least some of theoperations of a method may be performed by one or more processors orprocessor-implemented hardware modules. The performance of certain ofthe operations may be distributed among the one or more processors, notonly residing within a single machine, but deployed across a number ofmachines. In some example embodiments, the processor or processors maybe located in a single location (e.g., within a home environment, anoffice environment or as a server farm), while in other embodiments theprocessors may be distributed across a number of locations.

The performance of certain of the operations may be distributed amongthe one or more processors, not only residing within a single machine,but deployed across a number of machines. In some example embodiments,the one or more processors or processor-implemented modules may belocated in a single geographic location (e.g., within a homeenvironment, an office environment, or a server farm). In other exampleembodiments, the one or more processors or processor-implemented modulesmay be distributed across a number of geographic locations.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, discussions herein using wordssuch as “processing,” “computing,” “calculating,” “determining,”“presenting,” “displaying,” or the like may refer to actions orprocesses of a machine (e.g., a computer) that manipulates or transformsdata represented as physical (e.g., electronic, magnetic, or optical)quantities within one or more memories (e.g., volatile memory,non-volatile memory, or a combination thereof), registers, or othermachine components that receive, store, transmit, or displayinformation.

As used herein any reference to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment”means that a particular element, feature, structure, or characteristicdescribed in connection with the embodiment is included in at least oneembodiment. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in variousplaces in the specification are not necessarily all referring to thesame embodiment.

Some embodiments may be described using the expression “coupled” and“connected” along with their derivatives. For example, some embodimentsmay be described using the term “coupled” to indicate that two or moreelements are in direct physical or electrical contact. The term“coupled,” however, may also mean that two or more elements are not indirect contact with each other, but yet still co-operate or interactwith each other. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

As used herein, the terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “includes,”“including,” “has,” “having” or any other variation thereof, areintended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a process,method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements is notnecessarily limited to only those elements but may include otherelements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method,article, or apparatus. Further, unless expressly stated to the contrary,“or” refers to an inclusive or and not to an exclusive or. For example,a condition A or B is satisfied by any one of the following: A is true(or present) and B is false (or not present), A is false (or notpresent) and B is true (or present), and both A and B are true (orpresent).

In addition, use of the “a” or “an” are employed to describe elementsand components of the embodiments herein. This is done merely forconvenience and to give a general sense of the description. Thisdescription, and the claims that follow, should be read to include oneor at least one and the singular also includes the plural unless it isobvious that it is meant otherwise.

This detailed description is to be construed as exemplary only and doesnot describe every possible embodiment, as describing every possibleembodiment would be impractical, if not impossible. One may be implementnumerous alternate embodiments, using either current technology ortechnology developed after the filing date of this application.

We claim:
 1. A merchant communication terminal for using an autonomous vehicle as an electronic payment device, the merchant communication terminal comprising: one or more processors in a merchant communication terminal associated with a merchant; a non-transitory computer-readable memory coupled to the one or more processors and storing thereon instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the merchant communication terminal to: obtain identification information for an autonomous vehicle; verify that the autonomous vehicle has not been reported stolen by communicating the identification information to a server for retrieving stolen vehicle records; detect a triggering event indicating that the autonomous vehicle is within a predetermined range for communicating with the merchant communication terminal; receive, via a short-range communication link, virtual account information for a virtual account associated with the autonomous vehicle; receive and accept, via the short-range communication link, an input from the autonomous vehicle authorizing payment for fuel provided by the merchant; direct a fuel pump to open a valve to provide fuel to the autonomous vehicle; securely receive, via the short-range communication link, funds from the virtual account at a virtual account for the merchant; and transmit, via the short-range communication link, a notification that electronic payment for the fuel has been accepted to facilitate the autonomous vehicle acting as a payment device.
 2. The merchant communication terminal of claim 1, wherein the instructions further cause the merchant communication terminal to: transfer the fuel to the autonomous vehicle by: directing the autonomous vehicle to a particular location for receiving the fuel; and confirming delivery of the fuel by obtaining an indication that the autonomous vehicle received the fuel.
 3. The merchant communication terminal of claim 2, wherein to obtain an indication that the autonomous vehicle received the fuel, the instructions cause the merchant communication terminal to at least one of: receive, via the short-range communication link, an electronic message from the autonomous vehicle indicating that the fuel has been received; or capture, via a camera communicatively coupled to the merchant terminal, images of the autonomous vehicle and analyze the images to determine that the fuel was received.
 4. The merchant communication terminal of claim 1, wherein the merchant communication terminal is communicatively coupled to the fuel pump having a robotic arm for maneuvering a nozzle to automatically pump the fuel into a gas tank opening of the autonomous vehicle, and the instructions further cause the merchant communication terminal to: determine that a gas tank of the autonomous vehicle is open or uncovered; determine a height of the gas tank opening of the autonomous vehicle and a distance from the merchant communication terminal to the gas tank opening; and direct the robotic arm included in the fuel pump to insert the nozzle into the gas tank opening for automatic filling of the gas tank.
 5. A computer-implemented method for using an autonomous vehicle as an electronic payment device, the method executed by one or more processors programmed to perform the method, the method comprising: obtaining, by one or more processors, identification information for an autonomous vehicle; verifying, by the one or more processors, that the autonomous vehicle has not been reported stolen by communicating the identification information to a server for retrieving stolen vehicle records; detecting, by the one or more processors, a triggering event indicating that the autonomous vehicle is within a predetermined range for communicating with the merchant communication terminal; receiving, by the one or more processors via a short-range communication link, virtual account information for a virtual account associated with the autonomous vehicle; receiving and accepting, by the one or more processors via the short-range communication link, an input from the autonomous vehicle authorizing payment for fuel provided by the merchant; directing, by the one or more processors, a fuel pump to open a valve to provide fuel to the autonomous vehicle; securely receiving, by the one or more processors via the short-range communication link, funds from the virtual account at a virtual account for the merchant; and transmitting, by the one or more processors via the short-range communication link, a notification that electronic payment for the fuel has been accepted to facilitate the autonomous vehicle acting as a payment device.
 6. The method of claim 5, further comprising: transferring the fuel to the autonomous vehicle by: directing the autonomous vehicle to a particular location for receiving the fuel; and confirming delivery of the fuel by obtaining an indication that the autonomous vehicle received the fuel.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein obtaining an indication that the autonomous vehicle received the fuel includes: receiving, via the short-range communication link, an electronic message from the autonomous vehicle indicating that the fuel has been received; or capturing, via a camera communicatively coupled to the merchant terminal, images of the autonomous vehicle and analyzing the images to determine that the fuel was received.
 8. The method of claim 5, wherein the merchant communication terminal is communicatively coupled to the fuel pump having a robotic arm for maneuvering a nozzle to automatically pump gas into a gas tank opening of the autonomous vehicle, and further comprising: determining, by the one or more processors, that a gas tank of the autonomous vehicle is open or uncovered; determining, by the one or more processors, a height of the gas tank opening of the autonomous vehicle and a distance from the merchant communication terminal to the gas tank opening; and directing, by the one or more processors, the robotic arm included in the fuel pump to insert the nozzle into the gas tank opening for automatic filling of the gas tank. 